


Caught In A Trap

by LeoOtherLands



Series: All the Broken Pieces [21]
Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Always, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, I think?, M/M, Mild Smut, Most likely a failed attempt..., Rare Pairings, Whether Jake likes it or not, attempt at fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24839659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands
Summary: Things are strange in the Entity's realm and Jake stumbles into a situation he wasn't expecting.
Relationships: Evan MacMillan | The Trapper/Jake Park
Series: All the Broken Pieces [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1386661
Comments: 101
Kudos: 139





	1. Chapter 1

I was fairly certain the sound I made was a shriek, but it was hard to tell. Things had been going smoothly, until just a second before, and it was difficult to process how quickly events had turned from detached, almost disinterested, calm to stunning, biting pain.

Boredom. It was boredom that was the culprit. You would think a weird reprieve from the Entity summoning us to Trials would make the campfire a more wholesome, cheerful place, but you’d be wrong. Time was not easy to calculate when nothing changed and there was no day/night cycle to alternate the never ending monotony, but all of us agreed it had been _a long time_ since anyone had been called to a Trial. Maybe even a few weeks out where the rotation of planets still held meaning, and everyone was starting to get edgy.

There just wasn’t anything to do. You could talk about the outside only so much before it started pissing you off or soul-sucking the life right out of you, and talking about Trials when there weren’t any was a drag, and you could only fuck each other for so long before even that got tedious and people started snapping at each other. David was stomping around camp like a thundercloud, Meg was bickering with anyone who got too near her, and Quentin had a haunted look about him like a hollow-eyed zombie because he hadn’t even been able to grab a quick nap in-Trial in… however long it’d been, and I just needed to get out of there.

So, I had. I scooted, deciding to take my chances in the fog with the killers, who were probably as restless and uptight, or worse, than we were because they’d had nothing to do in however long. It wasn’t the best decision, wasn’t the smartest thing to do, despite the fact the fog rarely bothered me and I seldom got lost. It was the killers more than the fog that had been keeping us close to the campfire; we could hear them out there, just outside the boundaries of our little territory.

They were starting to lose it.

Which was why I made my way to the MacMillan manor. Not because Evan, the Trapper, was the least dangerous, but because of all of them, I thought Evan was the most levelheaded and the least likely to lose his cool over a little downtime.

But then, what did I know about what went on inside the Trapper’s head? Just when I thought I’d figured him and his traps out, he did something unexpected. Like this trap. This damn trap!

I almost cried, as I clawed at the metal jaws holding my lower leg, my fingers slip-sliding in the slick of my own blood. The trap had looked easy, been obvious, not hidden at all, just begging for a little sabotage, and sure it was rigged to a couple other traps, so if I fucked up the first one, the others would trigger, but I’d worked on traps like that before without issue. What I hadn’t expected was the reverse rig, so when I deactivated the first trap, this other one had sprang shut on my leg.

It hadn’t broken the bone, but the teeth were sharper than Evan’s usual, and the more I struggled the more it shredded into muscle and flesh. Even if I could get the thing _off_ , and I didn’t think I could, not this time, Evan had done something to it to make it harder to pry apart, I wouldn’t be walking away. Not even if I stuck around and waited for the wound to heal.

Because the lack of Trials wasn’t the only thing standing people on their last nerve. There was something wrong with the Entity, something not right. If any of this had _ever been_ right. It wasn’t, it hadn't, but now the everyday, monotonous normal wasn’t normal anymore. Wounds weren’t healing up in a short while like they should. Now, if you were hurt, you had to take care of it and wait and wait and hope it didn’t fester because you could end up dead. And goodness knew what would happen if you _died_ right now. People were still coming back to life, Quentin had found that out when he’d stumbled into the Doctor while scavenging. He’d come back, but not before what felt like days and days and not until we’d all been in a state of panic at the campfire, thinking he _wasn’t_ coming back, and if the Entity was going to get bored and fuck off and leave us, the least it could do was put us _back_ where it found us. But Quentin _had_ come back, looking no better rested than when he’d kicked it, proving the Entity was still around and just further being a dick.

And what if… what if the next one who died didn’t come back because the Entity was bored and trying something new. Permanent decease. There was always that chance. Which only made my slinking off to fiddle with traps all the more selfish and petty. I was going to make the others worry and I could only hope no one was coming after me. Even as I rather pitifully hoped they would because I didn’t want to be alone out here for the first time I could remember. I didn’t want to lay there alone waiting for Evan to come find me.

So, I hoped it, as endless time went on and all I could do _was_ lay there, wondering when I _would_ hear the all too familiar thud of Evan’s footsteps. I expected it to be soon, but I lay there and lay there and lay there and nothing. No Evan, come to deal with the pesky saboteur and no help to spring me from the trap. Just me and unmarked time and _ache_.

I had to be still because it hurt like hell when I moved even a little bit, but the longer I was still… Was it days in the places where days existed? The longer I stayed there, the harder it was to _be_ still. The bleeding had mostly tapered off and only dribbled a little when I moved, but other problems made me restless. I wasn’t used to being hungry and thirsty anymore, but those annoyances had come back with the break in the Trials and I wanted water. Wanted it so damn bad I felt like screaming and crying and I started clawing at the trap again, even knowing it would do no good. I was caught. Good and truly caught.

After a while, I realized I had two options: I could do what other animals did when they were caught and take my leg off to escape the trap, or I could lay there and die in the faint hope I’d eventually end up back at the campfire and not just spin off into oblivion because the Entity had better things to do than play its little game. Only choice one wasn’t much of a choice because I had no real way of amputating my own leg and if I managed it, which I seriously doubted I could, I could just end up bleeding out. And if I didn’t, I’d have to drag myself back to the campfire, and what? Be a useless invalid until the Entity got back on its game?

Whimpering, I tucked myself into as tight a ball as I could manage with my leg in a trap, and lay there, ruminating on what a stupid move it’s been to lose my head and go off to play around in the fog. Real good move, Jake, real good move…

More time, more nothing but growing pain and deep, internal _ache_. I started to move less and doze more, in short twitching bursts, because I had no energy and what else was there to do? When the muffled thuds of Evan’s steps finally did reverberate through the ground and into my ear, it was almost a relief mixed with terror.

What was he going to do? A quick death would be the least I could hope for, but…

But.

I barely had the strength to open my eyes and look up when the large man paused over me and said my name. Or, what passed as my name with him. “What have we here? The little Saboteur.”

I mewed something intelligible and shivered but Evan didn’t respond. Just breathed behind his mask before bending down and prying the trap’s jaws open. Normally, I would have scurried out and tried to make a break for it, but this wasn’t normal and I just yelped. The feeling of the trap’s teeth ripping out of me a whole new, sharp sting that chased me down into dark, almost unconsciousness.

A thing probably just as well for me because I missed most of Evan hauling me unceremoniously unto his shoulder and carrying me, non-too-gently, back to the manor. I didn’t come to until Evan threw me like a sack unto a bed and started undoing my belt and fly. That roused me enough to hiss and spit and try kicking out with my good leg because _this was not_ what I expected.

Trying to wrestle with Evan when I was at my peek in a Trial was pointless enough. Trying to get him off me when I was basically limp from blood loss and dehydration wasn’t even an attempt. He just grabbed my leg, his massive hand circling my thigh, and shucked my pants off in a swift jerk that had me crying out when the blood-soaked fabric came off my torn-up leg. I struggled, then stilled when he put another hand on my chest, fingers splayed, pushing me down into the mattress.

“Don’t fuss.”

He said it like I was some sort of wild thing he was trying to tame and not as though he could maybe cave my chest in with that hand if I didn’t listen. It was confusing, but either way, I stopped moving and things continued to be confusing.

Instead of carrying on with the line of activity I anticipated after he’d stripped my lower half, Evan payed no attention to what was between my legs and all of it to my now freely-bleeding limb. Calloused, rough hands inspected his trap’s handiwork, and proceeded to treat it with minute care, whether I complained about it or not. I _did_ complain about it, it _hurt_ , damn it! You didn’t get a needle and thread through your skin without it _hurting_ like a motherfucker!

And more than that, what the fuck was _this_?! It made no sense. Evan had never once been kind to me, never once shown the slightest sliver of compassion when I crawled away from him, bleeding and in pain. So, an Evan firmly wrapping my cleaned and stitched leg in bandages with the art of a well-trained medic, was an Evan I didn’t understand.

He patted my thigh when it was done and commanded, “Stay here,” before getting up and going, clicking the door shut behind him.

I waited maybe ten seconds before wiggling to the edge of the bed. _Staying_ there was _not_ going to happen. No way, no how, I was _out_ of the trap and I was going back to the campfire. The why of this situation could be figured out at a later date, when I wasn’t half down for the count in the MacMillan manor.

Only, _leaving_ wasn’t exactly easy. My leg crumbled out from under me the moment I put pressure on it and I went down like a puppet without strings. My head was spinning and that was only partly because I’d cracked it on the hardwood floor. Blood loss, pain, hunger, dehydration, and a crack to the head. Half down for the count might have been an understatement. I was all the way down for the count and the long stretch of space between the four-post bed and the splintered, but still ornately-carved door, suddenly looked way too far, as if it were elongating in front of my eyes.

The fluctuating appearance of things and the surety Evan would be back any moment, had me whimpering and pulling myself across the floor with my fingertips. First to my pants, because I was not about to go running through the fog naked from the waist down, and then, after a near-frantic, panting struggle with my filthy piece of clothing, to the door. The door… where I ended laying on the ground in a pile, trying to imagine how I was going to get to the handle and turn it, much less crawl through the manor and outside.

I was still there, half delirious, when that slab of wood opened, admitting the hulking form of Evan. He glanced down at me through the holes in his mask, and I could only moan and close my eyes.

“I told you to stay,” he rumbled, at last, and I half sobbed something because what was he going to do?

He sighed, disgusted, and paced away, leaving me there. But not for long. He set something down on a table to one side of the bed, and was back on me before I could haul half my heavy body over the threshold. His large hands gripped my waist, circling it, and just serving to remind me of the differences in our size, and lifted me up and over his shoulder again, as if I weighed nothing.

Strung out and at the end of myself, my limbs trembling with exertion, I let myself hang there, until he tossed me back unto the bed. _That_ hurt. Both my leg and head throbbed and my ears rang. If Evan had any mind to do something untoward, he was going to have his chance because I’d had it. I was done. This was all and I had no more. I couldn’t even open my eyes.

It did seem Evan had something in mind. The bed sank under his weight and he reached for me, to drag me over to him. But, what he wanted was not what I thought. Instead of the cutting edge of a blade on my skin or his hand fumbling at my fly, he slipped an arm under my shoulders and supported me, while he brought something to my lips.

Cool liquid went down my throat and I coughed, but I swallowed it. Water, or as near as you got in the Entity’s realm. After the first few, chocking mouthfuls, I gasped and one of my hands went up to grasp Evan’s wrist and keep the cup there because I _wanted more_. But I had no strength and he shook me off, put the cup aside. Grunting, the man reached for something else and tapped it against my lips. It was hard to tell what he was feeding me. Was it plant or animal? The Entity had no talent replicating what things were meant to taste like and this was like colorless nothing, but it went down and the empty spot down inside me went away.

It was stupid, but I didn’t realize I was crying until Evan grunted again and flicked the tears off my face. Stupid to cry because I felt good, but I couldn’t help it any more than I could help the fact my overtaxed body decided that moment was the one. The one where it wasn’t going to take anymore and was going to shut down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "starts fic" It's going to be a doodle, no more than 2k. "keeps writing" Okay, it's going to be two chapters. "posts first chapter" Okay, it's going to be THREE chapters. "gets halfway through second chapter" Okay, four. Four. It's going to be four chapters. "face palm"

I wasn’t sure where I was when I came back. I was laying down and I was warm and someone had their arms around me. From the size, I guessed it was David. We’d fucked a time or two, and he’d tried for more, light intimacy after each session, something I’d always denied him with a sarcastic disdain. But laying there, feeling strung out and wrung out, I could almost imagine I’d let him get away with it after a particularly hard fuck.

Almost.

But the smell was wrong and the surface under us was too soft. Not to mention, the familiar crackle of the campfire was missing. The hollow space around us was too empty and quiet, and we would never go far enough from the rustle of the campfire that we couldn’t hear it, not even to fuck. David wouldn’t let us, even though I told him repeatedly it _would be fine_.

So, not David.

David wasn’t holding me.

Then who? Just who the _fuck_?!

Thoughts spiraled around my mind, disconnected bits of memory that refused to pull themselves together to form a solid image, leaving me with just deep-rooted ache. My head harbored a dull pounding, centered around the base of my skull, and my leg felt like I’d stepped in one of Evan’s bear traps.

Bear traps…

Traps…

Evan…

_Evan!_

The thought was a shout in my head and I jerked awake, eyes springing open, a snarl working its way off my lips, even as I started scratching and kicking. Evan had me on my side, our chests together, and his arms around my shoulders. When I started to struggle, he grunted in annoyance at being woken up, more than anything, and let me worm my way out of his hold. Why he was letting me go so easily was less of an immediate concern to me than _why the hell_ he’d been holding me, _cuddling me_ _damn it_ , to begin with, and, once free, I kept backpedaling, until my hand hit the edge of the bed and slid off it. I gasped and tried to stop myself from falling, but for the second time in a very short space of what passed as time, I found myself falling flat on Evan’s floor.

The sharp impact knocked the breath out of me, but Evan’s unmasked face coming into focus over the side of the bed had me scrambling back in a crab-crawl that favored my injured leg and set off a strange, jangling rattle I didn’t fully take in or understand, until I was pulled up short by a sharp tug on my left wrist.

Unbelieving, I stared at my hand. Evan had tethered me to the bed, like I was some wild animal he had to tie up to prevent it from wandering off or running away. He’d locked my wrist in a leather-padded, metal manacle that was connected to a supple length of chain he’d secured to one of the bed posts supporting the headboard. I blinked at it, heart thrumming and head buzzing. He’d tied me up. Trapped me. Again. And in the worst of ways.

“Come back on the bed, Saboteur,” Evan rumbled, and I raised wide eyes to him. He hadn’t moved from his balanced perch on the edge of the bed, only looked at me with dull fascination. Like I was some unpredictable creature he’d brought into his house. One he could partly anticipate, but that still irked him with its stubborn persistence in disagreeability.

The bastard. The god damned bastard. I decided right then I wasn’t going to talk to him. Wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a response. If he was going to treat me like a wild animal, than all I would give him were the snarls and growls of one. So, I bared my teeth at him and scuttled to the side, as I couldn’t go back any further. There was an old-fashioned bureau, heavy as the hulk of a bed Evan had tied me to, on this side of the that pieces of furniture Evan still occupied, and the reach of my tether was just enough to allow me to huddle on the other side of it, away from Evan’s view and his mild look of disgust. Careful not to jostle my leg, I bunched myself up there with my back to the thick wood.

Behind me, Evan sighed. I wondered if he’d come retrieve me, if he was so keen on having me in his bed, but he only muttered, “Have it your way, Saboteur,” and let me be. There was the sound of the bed moving under him and then the soft rhythm of his breathing, signaling he’d gone back to sleep. Just gone back to sleep and left me to my own devices.

I peeked around the side of the bureau, to confirm this, then hunched down further and started picking at the cuff on my wrist. Evan had had the annoying good sense to empty my pockets, so all I had were my fingers and nails, and a moment or two was enough to confirm I wasn’t getting out of the manacle without something else to work with. The chain itself wasn’t overly thick or weighty, but I wasn’t going to be able to break it, unless it had a weak link, which I doubted, and the bed…Evan wasn’t the kind to leave you an out, unless he was in a mood to do it. I was betting I couldn’t disconnect the chain from the bedpost, and there was _no way_ in bleeding hell I was going to be able to move that thing on my own, even if I’d had two good legs. It was an old-school piece that would take three of me to budge, _without_ Evan laying on it.

Frustration bloomed in my chest, and I pressed my face into my knees, teeth clenched. I stayed that way as what might as well have amounted to a night went on and I got colder and colder. It was like there was a growing chill creeping around the room, determined to work its way into the core of me. Soon I wasn’t scrunched down into a ball so much to hide from Evan as I was to stay warm. It was _fucking freezing_! I wanted to be warm, damn it, but I had a notion the only way I was going to be warm was if I went back on the bed with Evan, and I wasn’t about to do that, so I stayed there, until I was shivering. Shaking, so hard I was finding it difficult to breathe and my muscles were so taunt it hurt.

I didn’t even notice Evan standing over me, until he sighed, “Stubborn,” and bent down to grab me. I yelped, but was taken too much by surprise to put up a fight before Evan dumped me without fanfare unto the bed. Hissing and spitting, I turned on him, expecting he would crawl back into the bed with me, but he only looked at me, said, “Stay,” and walked away.

And of course I _did_ stay because there wasn’t much else to do, once the door had thumped closed behind him. I investigated where the chain met the bedpost, but as anticipated, I couldn’t break it. The chain was linked directly to a thick bolt Evan had sunk into the wood. I couldn’t break it and I couldn’t pull the bolt out. That confirmed, I glanced at the bedside table, found it clear, pawed through every drawer in the bureau, found it empty, and ended sitting there, counting cracks in the plaster. Maybe I would have looked out the window, but it was too far away to see out of properly from the bed and Evan had made sure I couldn’t reach it on my chain, even if I could _stand_. Not that I’d want to try exiting the manor that way. A cursory glance was enough to tell me I was on the second floor. Given how the Entity had been acting, I didn’t relish the idea of jumping from a height. Not unless I got desperate.

And currently, the worst I was happened to be furious. Evan had just _left me_! And he didn’t come back. As if I was of no concern at all, the man went about whatever occupied him without even bothering to check on me. Slowly, as the sense of cold grew less and the duel need for food and water crept up on me instead, I began to switch from irate to hopelessly afraid.

What was Evan planning to do with me? Had he forgotten me? Did he intend to watch me starve, tied to his bed? Would that get him off? _Could_ I even die that way? None of us had actually confirmed that yet, we hadn’t wanted to try. I didn’t want to be locked in this room alone. I wanted to be back at the campfire. I wanted to swagger back into camp with a smirk and watch everyone’s looks of worry turn to annoyance.

The thoughts obsessed me, while I waited, face down on the bedding, face hidden in the pillow I’d wrapped my arms around. I was so lost in myself and anxiety, I jerked pitifully when Evan came back in and whimpered pulling myself tighter around the pillow.

Evan regarded me, a ball of pathetic survivor, folded around his bedding and blinking at him, and shook his head. Ignoring the bed altogether, he only tromped over to the table, clacked something down on it, and commanded, “Eat, Saboteur. Or do I have to feed you again?”

My cheeks went hot and my blinking turned to a glare, even if I didn’t move from constricting his pillow. _Bastard_ , I hissed inside my own head, too determined not to speak to him to say it out loud.

Evan waited me out, though. There was never anything to say about his _patience_ when he wanted to see you come crawling out of your hiding spot. He just stood there and eventually my empty stomach got the better of me, and I let go of the pillow, to crawl across the bed to the table, grumbling intelligibly all the while.

What Evan had brought me wasn’t any better than what he’d fed me before, but I was in no position to be picky and it was still more than I got on a normal day, hunting around with the others. Which was probably a good thing for me because Evan didn’t bring me anything else the rest of the day. He vanished again and didn’t reappear, until I was moping dejectedly near the headboard.

I’d been picking at the cuff on my wrist, and despite the leather padding, my constant fretting with it had begun to rub my skin raw. When Evan came in, I stopped picking and hissed. The bigger man sighed, but chose to ignore my display and distaste. He moved about the room, seemingly surveying it, while I tracked him with my eyes, then he took off his mask and sank onto the edge of the bed. Hissing again, I scrambled back to the opposite edge, where I perched, probably looking like a messy, disgruntled cat.

Evan looked at me and lie down, then he opened his arms, with a passive expression on his face, and said, “What’s it going to be Saboteur?” A question I took to mean was I going to let him cuddle me, for whatever insane, private reason he had, or was I going to spend more time on his floor.

My eyes flicked quick between his arms and his face several times, and I growled, clawing at the edge of mattress I perched on. Evan huffed a breath, like exasperation, and turned over, so his back was to me, mumbling, “Have it your way, Saboteur,” in repeat of the de facto night before. Cueing me into to the fact he was again going to leave me to my own devices. Was again going to let me prowl around his room, while he slept with no fear whatsoever of what I could do.

Was again going to allow me to _freeze_ , if that’s what I damn well wanted.

I opted to stay like that, balanced on the extreme edge of the bed, if Evan wasn’t going to make any move to snare me, and though that was better than the floor, halfway through what added up to night in the Entity’s realm, I still found myself shivering uncontrollably. It was like the Entity had no real understanding of how day and night were supposed to work, but had decided to semi replicate them with a stretch of time of moderate temperature, followed by a period where you fucking _froze_.

On an unconscious level, I supposed I had noticed it before but never really registered it because every time I was away from the campfire, where it was always blessedly warm, I was either in-Trial or on the move, dodging killers in the fog. No time to be cold when you were exerting that much energy. Of course, I’d felt cold laying out on Evan’s grounds with my leg in a trap, but I’d taken little outright thought to that, sort of assuming it was my body going into shock. Something probably not far from the truth, to some extent.

But with nothing to do and not much pain to distract me, _cold_ was all I could think about in Evan’s house. Laying huddled up on one side of Evan’s bed with no blanket and no campfire, all I could feel was _cold_. So. _Fucking._ COLD. Not freezing in the sense I’d die of it, but to the point I couldn’t get warm no matter what I did, or how I curled in around myself. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus, couldn’t do anything but shiver and whimper, like a pathetic thing.

I tried to _resist_ , tried to hold out, tried to _not_ huddle up by Evan and his warmth, but come _morning_ I still found myself dozing and shivering sporadically against Evan’s back. When I’d moved and how long I’d been that way, my back to his and my legs drawn up to my chest, I didn’t know, couldn’t remember. I just snapped awake when Evan moved, and hissed and scurried away as quickly as I could, my teeth clenched with hot anger at myself for not only giving in but _getting caught_.

Luckily, Evan only sighed and left me alone again. Which left me dejected in a ball on the center of his bed. Alone with my indignity at myself. I was less afraid he would forget me and leave me to starve, but more depressed at the hopelessness of it all. What was I supposed to do?

Nothing. Not a god damned thing. Fuck knew what the others were thinking by now, but whether that thought was I was alive or dead, they would be in a state of panic. And wasn’t that bloody awesome? Just what I got for going off to play with Evan’s traps without a word. They didn’t even have an idea where to look for me.

The thoughts were a convoluted tumble that I’d already gone over out on Evan’s territory, with a trap anchoring me to the ground, but I couldn’t stop them from recurring. I both wanted to be found and didn’t want to be looked for. The rules of Evan’s game still weren’t set and I wasn’t sure what he would do with me or anyone else if they showed up.

I just wanted _out_ , but there was no way out. Left to myself, I pulled on the chain, trying to tug it from where it was sunk into the bed post, for a while. Then, quickly out of energy, I lapsed into alternatively dozing and picking at the cuff on my wrist. It was hard to tell how much sleep I’d missed before giving in and indulging myself in Evan’s body heat, but I was making up for it in this warmer part of the time revolution of the Entity’s.

Understandably, I did more fretful picking than sleeping. _Out_ , I wanted _out_! And mostly what stood between me and _getting away_ was a cuff and a screwed up leg.

I stopped my picking again when Evan came back, though. I somehow knew he would not like either the compulsion or the roughened skin that was growing under the leather padding, if he saw it. So, I stayed still, shoulders hunched and head down, hands in my lap, between my knees, when Evan shouldered the door open.

He was bringing food, of course. The rules weren’t set and the routine still too new to be firmly established, but Evan seemed intent on keeping me alive. I wasn’t about to argue, but he stopped me before I could move toward the side of the bed near the table, where he stood.

“I want to see it, and I don’t want you to fuss, Saboteur.”

The statement locked me in place, muscles tight, fingers curling down into the bedclothes bunched up between my knees. Locked me because I didn’t understand what it _meant_! My mind struggled to bring comprehension to the words for several long, painful heartbeats, while my startled eyes darted around his masked face and between massive hands. Hands that could crush me and had ended me more times than I could now easily recall.

Panic made rational, reasonable thinking hard to do, just royally fucked it up, actually, but then Evan grunted a dissatisfied sound and shifted on his feet and I saw food wasn’t all he’d brought. Medical supplies and fresh bandages sat alongside my meal, stacked neatly and with obvious care and forethought.

Then it clicked. By _it_ Evan meant my leg. He wanted to see my leg, and he didn’t want me to _fuss_ about it. And judging by the way he was standing between me and the food he’d brought, the more I _fussed_ the less likely I was to eat.

Hot rage slunk though my system, clenching my jaw and tightening my fingers on the sheets still more, but it melted away as fiery and fast as it’d come. Leaving me tucking my head down onto my chest enough my face half sunk into my scarf. Evan, it appeared, was intent on both feeding me _and_ making sure my leg mended. As both of those things were also _my_ priorities, I didn’t see any reason to cause a scene. But that didn’t keep my cheeks from heating up or unclench my jaw. Evan had wrapped my leg from ankle to knee the first time he’d doctored it, and rolling up my pant leg wasn’t going to give him the access he needed to further his medical care. Fingers fumbling, I fought to undo my pants and get them off, without jostling my leg. Halfway through it, Evan got tired of watching my clumsy attempts and snagged me with one hand. I let out a surprised and undignified sound, but didn’t even have the time to put up a resistance before he yanked the piece of clothing in his way right off me. Then I just found myself laying there, gasping because he hadn’t been gentle and it _fucking hurt_ , and once again confounded by Evan’s apparent ease and effortlessness in half stripping me.

I didn’t have long to be dazed and puzzled by it, though. Evan’s ministrations weren’t light and sweet. They were efficient and straightforward. Rough, calloused hands unwound the old bandages and proceeded to poke and prod at me, until I had my head buried in a pillow, to hide my protests. _Of course_ , Evan wouldn’t be _gentle_ or _considerate_ of the face he hadn’t given me anything for the pain, and the god damn thing still hurt like a son of a bitch. _Of course_ , not.

But at least an Evan causing me pain was an Evan I could understand. An Evan more in-line with the image I held of him in my mind than an Evan who doctored me and opened his arms to cuddle me because he knew I was going to be cold.

The pain didn’t last long, however. Evan knew what he was doing and daftly rebandaged my leg before I was fully aware he’d finished. Then he patted my ankle and rumbled, “Eat, Saboteur.”

I did. After I found my pants and struggled back into them. Evan didn’t help with _that_. Of course, not. He wouldn’t. He only watched me hiss and sputter, then just did the same while I ate. When I finished, he gathered everything and made to leave, per what was becoming the normal. I expected he would without a parting, but…

“You’re lucky, Saboteur.”

The words were cold uncertainty poured over my shoulders, to spread down my spine, and they made me shudder because I didn’t know what they _meant_. Yet again, reduced to cluelessness and left at the mercy of Evan’s inexplicability. I’d been sitting in the middle of the bed, head dropping, preparing to be alone again, preparing to aimlessly doze and pick at my cuff again, and I _did not feel_ lucky. I felt listless and confined, but I still dragged weary eyes up to Evan, hoping for a clue to his latest conundrum.

The larger man was standing in the open doorway, studying me out of the holes in his stock and emotionless mask, rendered as indefinable as his statement, until he chose to speak again. “You somehow escaped infection, Saboteur, and the damaged tissue is healing well. But the stitches will have to stay in for now, and you won’t be walking on it for a while.”

I blinked slowly at him, digesting his words. My leg, he meant my leg, again. And both relief and depression seemed to swell with the information he’d given me. No infection, so I wasn’t likely to writhe around in agony for an inexplicable amount of time before kicking it, but. But. _You won’t be walking on it for a while._ I folded in on myself, as the door closed behind Evan. He’d said the words as fact, and not taunt, but they still stung my ears and told me one thing without any illusions to delude myself with.

I was here for the duration. Trapped for the duration of whatever _the fuck_ this was with Evan.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake: "I am not crying! Do not comfort me! I will bite you!"
> 
> Me and Evan in a corner: "The fuck, Jake?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "4 chapters will turn to 5.... 😆" Yeah... one of you said that last chapter and now look where we are. "cries" For the love of all the gods, please stop tempting my muse, he's a bastard.
> 
> Also, forgive me if this chapter is not the most coherent thing... My mind has not been kind this last week.

My eyes roved after Evan when he came back and moved about the room. He wasn’t exactly _doing_ anything, but watching him with my head cocked to the side, wondering what it was he actually _was_ doing, was still better than not having someone to watch with restless anticipation. It wasn’t that I was _happy_ to have Evan around, it was just so damn _boring_ when he wasn’t there. I wasn’t used to having nothing to do. If I wasn’t dodging killers and fixing gens in-Trial, I was dodging killers and generally doing my best to piss them off out of Trails. So, literally tied down, I wasn’t sure what _to do_ with myself, when Evan wasn’t in the room to be watched with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

What would he do after he finished his roaming? I had the feeling I knew and it had me sitting on the edge of the bed, fingers gripping it, until the skin on my knuckles pulled white over the bones. I also had the feeling I wasn’t entirely sure I knew what _I_ would do when, _if_ , Evan followed pattern, and that made my heart beat against my ribs, while my eyes followed him with that sharp, unwavering focus.

Evan had to notice my scrutiny long before he turned on me, and maybe that was why it came as a surprise when Evan challenged, “Thinking of something, Saboteur?”

I snarled at him, hackles raised, but the fierce light in Evan’s eyes had me deflating, sinking into myself and murmuring intelligible things before I could properly show that no, I _didn’t_ have anything on my mind, certainly I didn’t have _Evan_ on my mind. It was rare Evan got that look, even in-Trial, and everyone knew to steer clear of him when he did. Maybe something had pissed him off since I’d seen him last, or maybe he’d just had enough of my shit. Either way, I hunched down into myself and took to watching him from under my lashes, as opposed to outright staring.

It wasn’t long before Evan seemed satisfied with whatever he was doing and did as I expected he would all along. Sat down on the edge of the bed, took off his mask, and turned unto his side to face me. He didn’t say the words, but those intensely burning eyes said it all the same, when he opened his arms.

_What’s it going to be, Saboteur?_

Was I going to keep up with my shit, or was I going to play nice and let him cuddle me? Let him snuggle me in those massive arms and keep me from the Entity’s stupid, mother-fucking _cold_?

Moping and annoyed with myself for being so easily cowed into submission already, I glared at him, head jerking from side to side, as my attention jumped between his face and arms. I was _not_ just going to crawl into those waiting arms.

And Evan knew it, naturally. He grunted disdain and flipped unto his other side, posture and instantly slackening muscles saying I could do whatever I damn well wanted, I could _have it my way then_.

I sat there for some while longer, probably with the look of a disgruntled vulture the way I was hunched up so dejectedly, but that was my own fault, now wasn’t it? Rather like this whole situation. I’d just _had_ to go off and play with Evan’s traps, and now here I was, tied to his bedpost like an idiot.

I gave the man in question the stink eye, or his back at least, then let my eyes drop to my hands. A small shudder went through me, the first prelude to the shivering that was coming. There was a light chill seeping into the room already, I could _feel_ it breathing down my neck, for _fuck’s_ sake, and I was tired of being cold, I _wanted_ to be _warm_ , damn it!

And I was fairly certain, from past experience, the only warm thing in the room would shortly be Evan. Leaving me to sit dolefully, torn between my desire, my _need_ , to show Evan I didn’t need _him_ , and the fact I was sick of being _fucking cold_. In this annoyed state, I took in Evan’s back again. He was breathing evenly and his slow respirations told me the bigger man was asleep.

Still, I sat there a good deal longer, watching that broad back move with each inhale and exhale, just to be sure. The last thing I needed was Evan awake. I wanted Evan _asleep_. And when I was sure he was, I shifted unto my hands and knees, being careful to favor my injured leg. Palms sinking into the mattress, I paused like that, head held low, watching Evan for any sign he’d sensed the redistribution of weight. When the rhythm of his breathing didn’t hitch and none of his muscles twitched, I crept across the expanse of bed toward him.

My whole intention was to lightly press my back to his and steal some of his body heat, then beat it before he woke up and found out what I’d done. Good plan, solid plan. About as smart a plan as it’d been to go off and fuck with some of Evan’s traps to begin with.

Evan, it seemed, had been content to wait me out and was indeed sick of my bullshit. When I was a few feet from him, Evan turned to face me so fast all I could do was yelp in surprise and attempt to backpedaled and scurry away. A futile and rather pathetic effort, all things considered. Though I managed to turn myself around, I was too slow to do much else, and where could I have gone anyway? I had a bust leg and was tied to his bedpost like an _animal_! Evan simply reached out, said, “Come here, Saboteur,” snagged me by the collar, what might as well have been the scruff of my neck, and hauled me back into his arms.

I yelped again and gave a cursory struggle, kicking and squirming, more or less to show I wasn’t giving in to this _willingly_ or _quietly_ , but I still settled sulkily into Evan’s hold quickly enough, laying how he arranged me, with our chests together, my hands up under my chin, and his arms around my shoulders. It wasn’t as if I could _get away_ , after all. I was _stuck_ with Evan, if he had a mind to keep me like this, and all I could do against that solid strength of his was aim a displeased and resentful look up at him. Evan took it in, but only grumbled something satisfied and closed his eyes again, choosing to ignore me and leave me alone with my half-feigned indignation.

And with nothing else to do, and nowhere to go, now that I was good and truly caught and held in an inescapable _cuddle_ , I found myself turning over my anger and desperation, while I watched Evan’s face and he sank back into actual sleep. Just what _the fuck_ was _this_? What did Evan _want_? He wasn’t getting anything from this, unless you counted holding unto my grumpy ass, and I just wanted to _know_ what the hell he _wanted_.

One thing about Evan, though, he never gave you anything, never allowed you an inch, unless he felt like it, and Evan didn’t seem to be in the mood for explanations. He _seemed_ to be in the mood to _sleep_ , so eventually, I just gave it up, admitted I wasn’t getting anything but a chance to _sleep_ myself, and wiggled in his arms, looking for a more comfortable position. I ended with my head tucked into the hollow of Evan’s shoulder and my fingers curled into his shirt. The beating of his heart was just there, below my fingers, and I frowned at it, so slow and steady in his sleep. I didn’t know what to make of _that_ , either, but it was warm with Evan’s arms around me and that low beating beneath my fingertips lulled me down to sleep. Grumpy, aggravated sleep, but sleep. Sleep without shivering or thought of the campfire.

After that, Evan didn’t let me get away with avoiding his obvious desire I sleep near him. What passed for the next two _nights_ in the Entity’s realm, the bigger man eyed me and my sullen attitude, didn’t even bother opening his arms and _offering_ , and just grabbed me and pulled me, hissing and spitting, against him.

My fussing never lasted long, though. What was the _point_? Beyond demonstrating to Evan I wasn’t going to _behave_ for him, what good did it do? I couldn’t get away, couldn’t get _my way_. I was… stuck.

Caught.

Trapped.

Tied down.

The epitaphs ran through my head in a never-ending ouroboros cycle over the next two featureless twists of what passed as time in the Entity’s realm. _Stuck. Trapped. Tied. Caught._ Each imparting a portion of the weight it bore unto the mounting pressure of my depression, as I sat in an empty room, picking at a cuff I couldn’t get off. Picking until the skin beneath that cuff went from roughened, to bruised, to rubbed raw, images of small animals with their legs chewed off swimming up before my eyes.

Heavy. I felt heavy and listless the third emulated night after Evan had first grabbed me and forced me to cuddle and accept his warmth. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, head down and fingers curled in the bedding, when Evan came in. I knew he would pull me over to him, as if I was nothing more than a flailing kitten, as if I was some tiny, sharp-toothed thing, whose bite he didn’t fear, and I was tired. Tired in some inexpressible way.

Wearily, I eyed him, then I surprised him when he sat down, by shifting unto my hands and knees and beginning to pad my way over to him. I could tell he was surprised because Evan made a low sound and something sparked in his eyes, setting off a low, intense burning. It startled me and I stopped in my tracks, articulating a noise that might have been a whine.

Evan must have noted we were at a standstill, a kind of uneasy impasse that could tip either way at a moment’s notice, and he looked away, breaking eye contact, opening his arms and grumbling, “Well, come on then, Saboteur.”

I shivered lightly and turned my head, almost hung it, so Evan couldn’t see my face, shamed I was actually _doing_ this, crawling into Evan’s arms and curling against his chest. But I _was_ tired, and tired in a way that had nothing to do with being physically worn and everything to do with being confused and lonely. Both were sensations I was not used to and Evan’s heartbeat was beginning to be a familiar thing, a thing I craved and pressed my ear to in order to sleep.

I didn’t like it and I didn’t understand, and all of it just made the desire to be held that much worse, until I allowed myself to start crying when I was sure Evan was asleep. A kind of silent, clench-jawed crying, combined with angry, sick, disgusted tears. The kind of crying you don’t want people to see, and it only made it more unbearable that Evan must have heard me or felt my shoulders shaking or had never been asleep at all, and he tried to comfort me, brushing the hot tears off my face with his fingers.

Whining, I tried to jerk my head away from that soft assault, but Evan was persistent and thorough and I just couldn’t take it and I lashed out with my teeth instinctually. The result was a solid bite to the meat of his hand, around his thumb. The kind of bite that was meant to send a message, the kind that sunk deep and drew more than a little blood. Almost before I realized what I’d done, _what I’d done_ , the metallic bitterness of that blood clogged my mouth and flowed over my tongue, and I whined again because I knew I’d done a bad thing. A stupid thing. An irresponsible, _dumb-ass_ , dangerous thing.

 _I’d fucking_ bit _the man!_

Evan could have shaken me off, could have ripped his hand away, could have pried my jaws open, or pummeled me until I let go. I expected the latter, anticipated his damn justified outrage taken out on my shock-paralyzed person because an Evan _not_ hurting me was an Evan I didn’t get, and I’d given him _every reason_ to be pissed at me. Literally biting the hand that freaking fed me surely merited a reprisal, a punishment for all the trouble and hassle I’d given him. But Evan didn’t do anything. Didn’t move. He only grunted, arms stiffening around me in response to sudden, sharp pain, and lay there, letting me choke on his blood because I couldn’t _let go_ of his hand.

I _wanted_ to let go the moment I realized what I’d done, wanted that fucking copper horror out of my mouth, but I was stuck, clenched so tight I couldn’t move or think or _react_ , beyond that whine in my throat. And Evan’s _lack_ of reaction only fired my brain more. It was like I could feel circuits misfiring and fizzing in there but couldn’t _do_ anything about it.

Fucking _nothing_ made sense and I _hated_ it and I wanted him to _leave me_ the _bloody hell_ alone and I didn’t want him to _go_ and I’d _just fucking_ bitten _him_!

Finally, something snapped and I was able to unlock my jaw, with yet another whine because I just couldn’t hack it. _Any_ of it.

Evan took his hand away with a longsuffering sigh, let go of me, then slid out of the bed with a sound like disgust, and I just tucked myself into a ball and lay there because I was irrationally ashamed of myself and perversely horrified I’d just done that. I’d bitten Evan.

It’s shouldn’t have bothered me, I should have been _proud_ , but I wasn’t. I wanted to hide and there was nowhere to go. So, I just clutched the sheets in my fingers and did my best to be small, an unnoticeable thing on the bed.

Not that Evan was _even there_. He left for several minutes, the door clicking shut behind him. But somehow I knew he’d be back and didn’t dare move until he returned. When he stood in the room again, the bigger man took me in and I shivered, curling a bit tighter into myself, almost submerging my face in my scarf. Evan had none of that, though. He sat by me and moved to clean the blood from my mouth and chin with a towel he’d brought, and I let him because I wanted it gone. Wanted that tangible and horrific reminder of what I’d done _off_ me.

Only when he was satisfied with me did Evan let me be and turn to himself, tending to his still-bleeding hand. He cleaned the wound and bandaged it with strips of cloths wrapped around and between his thumb and index finger, to keep them from slipping off the hand. I watched him with guilt-tinged eyes, half angry with myself for having done it and half for feeling bad about it. How many fucking, god damned times had I _wanted_ to make Evan bleed, and now that I’d done it, I hated myself for it.

It wasn’t _fair_!

And too tangled up in my own thoughts and self-centered disgust, I was slow and too distracted to be wily or sneaky and Evan caught me watching, caught the sorry cast in my eyes, and it was impossible to take _that_ back and I didn’t even have the energy to fuss about it. He gathered me up and I let him pull me back against his chest. I couldn’t help that any more than I could help I started sobbing. I just couldn’t take it, _any of it_ , and Evan just let me cry, one arm wrapped around my chest, the other hand stroking slowly through my hair, while he murmured, “Little wild thing,” to me over and over, as if I really were some small animal he couldn’t fault for having bitten him.

He was comforting me and it ripped ugly sobs out of my chest. There was just no expressing how fucking messed up this whole situation was. How _fucking_ _fucked_ it was.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "shoves a chapter over and kicks it" Well, THAT took a lot longer than expected. I did not realize it had been almost a full month since my last update until a few days ago. I can only say, it has been a very busy and difficult few weeks. But this is done! And... the joke remains on me. We now have a story that will be 6 chapters long. "weeps" One bit of good news though, I have next chapter almost half written already and there will be smut. Finally. So, fingers crossed for the next update being done sooner than this one was. Enjoy!

Time was easily misplaced in the Entity’s realm. Probably partly because it wasn’t replicated very well, but probably more because when things were _normal_ you just didn’t think about it. You were either in-Trail, trying and usually failing at not dying, or you were at the campfire, glad for whatever moments you had to recoup before being dragged into the next Trail. Existence was just that cycle, and measuring with _time_ seemed pretty pointless after a while. So, time got lost.

No big deal. What the fuck ever, right? If you’re stuck in mother-fucking hell, do you really want to know how long you’ve been there?

_Maybe._

It was a determination I made after first realizing I had no solid idea how long I’d been in the Entity’s realm. After coming to the gut-wrenching understanding I couldn’t even remember how many Trails I’d been in anymore or how many times I’d died. A person should remember something like that, right? It should be a firm fixture in your mind, impossible to _get rid of_.

Only it wasn’t. Because a person could get used to anything if it went on long enough. You might hate it, you might despise every excruciating _second_ of it, but you could get used to anything. Even repeated, brutal death.

When I realized that, I’d come to the conclusion maybe I _did_ want to know how long I’d been stuck in this _bitch_ of a shit fest. Only, there was no way of knowing, so I had to let it go, let it pass, let it be. I had better things to do anyway. Like fuck with every killer I could annoy. _That_ kept me going. But didn’t really relieve the nagging itch in the back of my mind that wanted to _know_. Wanted to be _free_.

Because that’s what the desire to track time, to grasp and hold and understand just how long you’d been _trapped_ ultimately was. The desire to be free. When you were caught, you innately wanted to know _how long_ you’d been caught because the idea of it, of all the lost time, clawed at the back of your mind, tearing you apart.

It was why animals chewed their legs off to get out of traps, I was fairly certain.

It was why I wished I could remember how long I’d been with Evan. Because I wanted _out_ , and I couldn’t remember how long I’d _been_ there. That time was _misplaced_ right along with how many god damn times I’d died in the Entity’s mother-fucking realm.

At first I thought it would be easy to keep track of what semblance of time there was, given there were no Trails going on _and_ a seemingly set rotation of warm/cold, day/night patterns. But sometime after I bit Evan all concept of time slid right between my fingers. All concept of _how long_ just seemed to evaporate, leaving me with my growing depression and listlessness weighing me down. Both like a pull, keeping me tired to the bed as securely as the cuff around my wrist.

It didn’t matter each succession of _time_ was marked by my being alone, while I watched nothing and stared with blank, sightless eyes at corners or cracks or rumples of bedsheet, and then by Evan being there to feed me, or to demand to see my leg, or to open his arms and grunt, “Come on then, Saboteur,” I still lost count, lost track, lost sense. And it weighed on me like the changeless no-light of the Entity’s realm. Like the humiliation of going willingly into Evan’s arms every fake _night_. I was never able to meet his eyes, but after biting Evan, I stopped putting up a fight and just crawled into his waiting arms every time. Curled into his chest and listened to his heart without a fuss. I _fucking hated it_! But I couldn’t stop and it only added to my overall lethargy.

I wanted _out_!

And I was so… so…

The thought always trickled down into nothing. It was like parts of my mind were going empty, going dark, and I didn’t know what to do with that. I fucking didn’t know what to do _at all_!

Only two things gave me some vague idea of bullshit time and my missing thought processes.

One was my leg. The external ache died back a little at a time and the fourth or fifth time Evan rebandaged it, he took the stitches out. A time or two later he petted my calf and told me I could start putting pressure on it. _Should_ start putting pressure on it, so the muscles could get used to it again.

I did. But not until Evan was gone. I didn’t want him to see if my leg went out from under me and I ended up falling flat on my _ass_. That would be too embarrassing and I already couldn’t meet his eyes for being a stupid bitch about having bit his hand. Fuck it. If I was going to crack my skull open on his floor, I’d do it in _private_.

So, I waited, and when Evan clicked the door shut and left me again, I watched the aperture for several heartbeats, while my breath hitched, then I padded to the end of the bed, and swallowed hard, looking down at the floor. Damn, but it looked far away. After however long _not standing_ the idea of doing it was absurdly frightening.

And the bloody thing still _hurt_! The outer aching might have relaxed, but there was a constant, dull throb deep down that kept pace with my heart. It was going to _fucking sting_ to stand up.

Considering that, and the fact I didn’t really _want_ to smash my skull on Evan’s floor, I sat myself on my ass, dangled my legs off the bed, and wrapped my arms around one of the posts on the footboard. Hanging onto that like an idiot, I shuffled my weight onto my good leg, then eased it unto my bust leg, too. I had to bite my lip, slam my eyes closed, and turn my whimper into a snarl, it hurt so fucking bad. A couple of seconds of minimal weight on the thing and I was sweating and trembling and had to slide down the bedpost and back onto Evan’s bed.

I started crying angry, infuriated tears, then let out another snarl and started punching a pillow over and over again, until I collapsed in a heap. My eyes were tear-blurred, and I hitched little, useless sobs into the palms of my hands because how _fucking_ stupid was it I couldn’t even _stand_?!

I was also fucking mad I was crying about it like an imbecile, which only made the whole damn thing worse. My face was puffy and a sticky mess when Evan came back to sleep. He stopped and watched me, eyes examining me, as if looking to see if I’d done more damage to myself. I only hissed at him and crawled to his side of the bed, where I sat moodily, not looking at him. As if asking him what the hell he was waiting for. It was obvious what he would do, what he always _did_ , and I just wanted it over.

Because after Evan tucked me against him, after we slept and Evan went off again to do whatever he did, I could try again. And again. And again. Because fuck it, what was _standing_ compared to being stabbed or disemboweled or hooked in-Trail? I’d died over and over and over. I could _do_ this. I could _deal_.

And I could do it without _crying_ about it.

Though… apparently not without hanging onto a post and whimpering about it a good deal more. It was several long sessions of pulling myself up and down the post on the footboard before I could put my full weight on the leg without support. And even when I did, I couldn’t do anything _but_ stand for a long while. Walking was a whole other story.

I had to begin by edging around the bed, as far as my tether would allow, which wasn’t far, and then back again. Around and round, hanging unto the edge of the bed, so when, _not if_ , my leg gave out, I had something to hang onto. There was _no way_ I was going to let Evan find me unconscious on his floor because I’d been stupid and knocked myself senseless. No. _Fucking._ Way.

So, I kept fumbling and hissing and trying not to trip on my own, damn chain, until I thought I had enough strength and balance to take a step or two away from the bed. I was elated when I did. The unreasonable swell of pride in my chest at _standing_ and _walking_ all on my own deflating in the next second when I realized I still had nowhere to go. And I was still hobbling like an old man. I was still fucked.

Nowhere to go. Trapped. Because Evan wouldn’t let me out. Whatever his purpose was, I was still caught.

And that swelled my depression. Added to my listlessness. Whatever energy and motivation I’d found in trying to walk again evaporated with the understanding I wasn’t getting out. _Couldn’t_ get out.

A festering knowing that circled into my second translucent sense of time and blanking mental state: the cuff on my wrist.

I’d stopped picking at it consistently while I struggled against my own jacked-up leg, but when I was slapped with the knowledge it _didn’t matter_ if I could walk or not, the habit came back and hard. I’d pace a bit, why not? Nothing else to do… Then I’d sit and absently pick at the leather and metal circling my wrist. Looking at nothing, seeing nothing. Just… wearing my nails down on the unyielding materials.

And my skin, as well. It’d been rubbed raw before I gave my abused epidermis a break Once I got back into the relentless habit of picking, it became more than raw. It hurt, sure, but I didn’t think about it, until I saw the first bright spot of blood on my fingertip. That sort of came unexpected to my dull nerves, and I just sat, blinking at it.

Blood.

Blood on my finger.

 _Fingers_ , I noted when I examined them closer. On my fingers and under my nails. A rather grotesque discovery I instantly felt the need to cover up. Because _of course_ Evan would not appreciate it. I knew instinctually the fact I’d literally torn my own skin open would not sit well with the larger man. He wanted me _intact_ for whatever _god forsaken reason_!

I told myself it was only a few scratches, _shallow_ things, _easy to hide_ things. And I kept telling myself that as I continued to pace and continued to _pick_.

And combined, the degeneration of the skin on my wrist and my increasing ability to move around proved to show some small, inimical shift in what amounted to _time_ in the Entity’s realm. Even if I could no longer count it. My leg still fucking _ached_ deep down, but I was able to hobble around better on my tether. Not great, not fast, but _better_. I could even stand for kind of long periods of time before I had to sit down. And my ability to limp around Evan’s damn big bed at least let me get closer to the window. Not close enough to _reach_ it and give me an exit, if an _unwelcome_ exit, but close enough I could _see_ out of it. Not that there was much to see… Changeless sky and a spit of Evan’s land. Oh sure, sometimes I could see _Evan_ out there too, but what the _hell_ did I want to see _him_ for? But… my leg was mending. Slow. An increment at a time. Even as my wrist deteriorated and my mental state dissolved. A few scratches became deepening gorges. Raw skin kept breaking open in new places. Part of me must have known sooner or later Evan would notice it. It wasn’t exactly as though I could _keep hiding_ the blood coming out of the wounds. But I didn’t stop _picking_ at it either. I couldn’t seem to even realize I was _doing it_ , until I ripped open a scab or some new, tender spot. My mind was elsewhere and my fingers seemed to move reflectively.

Because time was _passing_. It was _moving_ and what had I _done_? The others would have given me up by now. Either given me up for dead, really and truly _fucking dead_ , or given me up as somewhere worse. Somewhere where there wasn’t an Evan around who _wanted me alive_. They had to have gone from panic to resignation to further fear. The thought if I was dead and hadn’t come back meaning they were all royally _screwed_ would have sunk right in, and that was my fault. I’d just _had_ to go off and play around, go jack off, like normal, and look where that had landed me. _Fucked_ myself and _fucked_ the other all at once.

And I just… didn’t consciously think about Evan’s eventual, unavoidable discovery of my self-harm any more than I grasped what I was _feeling_. I just kept telling myself I _needed_ to stop picking, _needed_ to stop, but _didn’t stop_. Didn’t do anything but carry on, until the inevitable force called Evan MacMillan caught me in the act.

One thing _had_ changed after Evan told me I should start putting pressure on my leg: Evan came to check on me more often. Possibly to be sure I _didn’t_ crack my head open on his floor, but also possibly for whatever other reason I couldn’t even guess. The why was infuriating, bloody _pointless_ to think about. Whatever the answer, the outcome was Evan appearing at random moments instead of just his marginally predictable twice.

When he found me, I was sitting hunched in the center of the bed, absently looking down without seeing and aimlessly picking. I was so lost in deadpan numbness, I didn’t even notice Evan was there, until he rumbled, “What are you doing, Saboteur?”

I was still coming to blurry terms with the fact Evan was _freaking there_ when he wrapped a hand around my right wrist and yanked my whole arm up and away from the rest of me and upset my balance, so I sort of hung there by that arm, making startled, uncertain sounds that weren’t really whines or whimpers or anything else. Just confusion more than any other emotion. It took Evan growling, “What are you doing?” again before I _got_ why he was manhandling me.

There was blood under the nails of the hand he held up in the air, and on the pads of my fingers. There was more blood in my lap, too. Somehow it’d splattered my knee and dripped unto the sheets in little, morbid constellations. And no wonder. Unfeeling, I’d picked at my wrist to the point red was all I could see where cuff met flesh. More of it, of that bright, liquid, red, was spilling into the cuff of my track jacket. It was still leaking and trickling in slow runnels down my arm, and I couldn’t remember doing _that_. Couldn’t remember hurting myself _that bad_ , and I wondered if that’s how it was with animals in a trap. If they just chewed and chewed and didn’t really realize what was happening until it was done.

My dumb, dull-eyed staring must have convinced Evan I hadn’t done it on purpose. That, or he determined this was yet another crime committed by a wild thing he couldn’t fault for having done it because he only sighed something like resigned disgust and eased me back onto his bed, so I wouldn’t fall awkwardly, due to upended balance. Once I was settled, he released my right wrist, shucked a bloodied case off a pillow, tore a strip from it, and wrapped it around my bleeding wrist, between the cuff and the sleeve of my jacket. Instead of tying it, Evan picked up my right hand again, and brought it to the wrapping, so I was holding it in place, murmured, “Stay,” and left me like that.

I sort of just half lay, half sat there, absently watching the blood bloom out on the white fabric like a slow flower, not really expecting anything but that Evan would come back. He wouldn’t have told me to _stay_ if he wasn’t going to come back. That wasn’t the Evan I was becoming all too familiar with. He was going to… _do_ something when he came back. I just didn’t know what that something _was_. That was all. I just had to wait. Wait for Evan and I’d know, though. And the question of what Evan would do when he was back in the room with me was more pressing than the sting I was little by little beginning to feel. I _really had_ fucked up my wrist. I didn’t think I’d done anything irreparable, or Evan wouldn’t have left so casually, but I’d still _fucked_ it. And wasn’t that just _fucking fabulous_? So ultimately god damned stupid of me…

Evan didn’t keep me waiting long and my muddled thought process didn’t take me far beyond that notion of my own idiocy, before I had to focus in on the lager man. He’d brought several things with him, but I couldn’t see them all right away. Evan had them in a box, for ease of carrying, and laid them out one at a time. Mostly medical supplies my mind skimmed over listlessly, but there were other things, too. I was turning my head away, almost letting it droop in partial exhaustion, when less innocence things appeared beside the bandages and ointments. A soft, leather collar that fastened closed with a metal loop, a bolt cutters, a lock…

I stiffened, the fingers holding the torn piece of pillowcase around my wrist gripping so tight blood oozed between them, to spatter the sheets, yet again. I should have been snarling, should have been back peddling away, while showing him my teeth, but I couldn’t seem to find the energy. I was so fucking tired and I was bleeding and I’d done that to myself and I _didn’t know_ what Evan was going to do, and even if I put up a fuss he’d just _do it anyway_. Maybe do more. I didn’t know, I didn’t understand him, or this, or anything, and I was tired. I just wanted it _over_. Whatever Evan had planned and whatever this _thing_ was between us.

Evan’s probing eyes noted my tensing, just as much as my weary face and lack of movement, and he didn’t seem inclined to leave me guessing. “The cuff needs to come off, Saboteur,” he rumbled. “I’d put it on your other wrist, but you’d only claw at it again. If you can’t control yourself, the chain needs to go somewhere you’re less likely to scratch.

_Bastard._

The thought crawled through my mind because this explained the collar. He anticipated I was less likely to _scratch_ at my neck and was going to collar me like an animal. Like an _errant dog_. And I _hated_ it, hated _him_.

But all I could seem to do was shuffle and shift, so I was more sitting than reclining, my hands together in my lap, the blood still leaking in slow drips that pattered unto the sheets, my spine bowed, and my head hanging. I didn’t really _want_ to look at Evan. I didn’t really want to do _anything_. I wanted to sleep and be free and roam through the fog, harassing killers. I wanted to be out of the Entity’s mother fucking _realm_. I wanted never to have been here. I wanted… not to be. Not death so much as inexistence. Dissolution. And not even really that. I wanted a thing I couldn’t grasp and baring that, if I couldn’t have _that_ I would rather not _be_. Not here…

Feeling heavy, I held the frayed strip of fabric closed over the wound I’d inflicted on myself and hardly noticed Evan talking again. Evan explaining and then questioning. “The collar is soft leather. Thick enough you won’t be able to break it, but light enough it won’t bother you. I can leave it loose enough for you to breathe, without you being able to get it off. It won’t be an issue, unless you decide to try something stupid, and you won’t be doing that, will you, Saboteur?” When I didn’t answer, too caught up in my own heavy lethargy to really catch on to what Evan was saying, he grunted, gripped my chin between a thick thumb and forefinger, and repeated, “Will you, Saboteur?”

The fact of my chin being held in Evan’s fingers wrenched me back from the nowhere I’d been drifting to, and I scrambled back from him, to sit hunched, shacking my head moodily. One of the few direct answers I’d ever given him because, no, I wasn’t going to do anything _stupid_ with his _damn collar_. As much as I want _out_ , wanted _free_ , choking myself to death in the partial hope of it getting me back to the campfire was as inviting an opportunity as exiting the MacMillan manor by Evan’s second story window. I wanted it over, but wasn’t quite ready to try it _that_ way, yet. Maybe if Evan had actually been _hurting_ me, instead of just humiliating me, I would have risked it, but Evan was… just…

“Come here, Saboteur.”

I glanced up, then away, unwilling to look at Evan’s longsuffering, oh so patent expression. The man was just patching up all the stupid, fucking, idiotic injuries I seemed to inflict on myself. He was keeping me alive and I didn’t get _him_ , didn’t get _why_. I was hardly a fun or amicable _pet_. So, why keep me? Why when he got nothing out of it but me in his arms at _night_?

“Saboteur.”

Evan’s voice was beginning to hold a note of aggravation, hardening it from his normal rumble, and I whined and did my best to awkwardly position myself in front of him, without meeting his eyes.

The larger man sighed disgust and reached for my hands. He unwound the soaked cloth and tossed it in his box. I would have drifted again, aimlessly, but a wad of gauze was forced into my hand and Evan used it, and my hand, to staunch the sluggish creep of blood coming from under the cuff. A clear sign he wanted me to _participate_ , and I did without argument or complaint. Would have stayed that way, thoughtlessly obeying, if Evan hadn’t brought out a small key. A tiny, silver glint that drew my weary eyes like a magnet.

Evan’s face said he expected it. Anticipated my reaction and the way I tracked the key in his hand. “You aren’t going to run, are you, Saboteur?”

Slow, my gaze lifted from the key to actually look at him. He was going to untether me, _untie me_ , let me off my leash, and I… Looking into Evan’s flat expression and dark, uncompromising eyes, I knew I wasn’t going to do a god damned thing. I might have been able to hobble around again, but I’d never be fast enough if I tried to run. Evan would grab me before I’d gone two steps and haul me back, kicking and hissing. And then…

My eyes sank back to the key, then to my hands, one holding white cotton, slowly turning scarlet, to the opposite wrist. I shook my head and shivered, something in me defeated in the most primal of ways.

I was going to do nothing…

Nothing…

And I didn’t know _why_.

Evan’s large hands covered mine and unlocked the cuff. The key’s turning in the lock was a soft _click_ , and I stiffened, every part of me going rigid, even as more shudders worked their way up my spine. Evan stilled, stopped with our hands together like that, in a kind of knot. Watching me work through the screaming thoughts in my head, those too loud, pulsing bleats that were turning my vision blurry and making me dizzy.

_Free! Free! I was free!_

Only I _wasn’t_ and I _couldn’t_ and I was going to _pass out_ or _blank out_ or do something equally stupid in front of Evan because I couldn’t seem to get enough _air_ and my heart was _beating too fast_ and I didn’t know if that was from the cuff coming off or Evan’s hands on mine and—

“Breathe, Saboteur.”

I raised blurred, wavering eyes to finally meet Evan’s gaze, and I decided two things. I was dizzy, so very bloody dizzy, and I couldn’t seem to get enough air because I hadn’t been _breathing_. I’d forgotten to mother fucking _breathe_ because Evan had taken a key to my cuff and Evan was _touching_ me. Just that. Just those simple things had taken away my god damn ability to _get air_! And wasn’t _that_ … that…

My thoughts were drifting away, going dark because I was about to lose it and _actually_ pass out. But—

“Breathe,” Evan commanded again and I found myself slumping forward, taking shallow breaths. Little, ragged sips of air that left me worn and lightheaded. Partly, I thought I was still going unconscious, but my keeper proved otherwise.

Evan made a sound in his throat and unwrapped the cuff from my wrist, the action keeping me alert, keeping me focused on him through doggedly determined, narrowed eyes. Yet, before I could even react to the fact of the loss of it, that cuff that’d kept me bound so long, Evan’s hands circled my wrist and began cleaning the blood away. I let him. Let him tend to me like the wounded thing I was, let him clean up what I’d done to myself, let him bandage it and pat my hand when it was done. I didn’t even move when Evan took the bolt cutters and cut the cuff from the chain. I just sat there listless, even in my minute interest in everything Evan did. As if the registration of each detail held a weight of intensity as it bloomed across my mind. A weight as though my body were sand about to crumble down into the soft folds of the sheets under my legs. Because… be… cause…

_Nothing._

I was going… to… do…

“Look at me, Saboteur.” Evan’s gentle rumble called me back from wherever it was I’d been wondering, and I raised faraway eyes to his face. With a soft grunt, Evan took my jaw in a hand and tilted my chin up a little more, so my neck was exposed. I could feel my pulse fluttering there, like the heartbeat of a pinned bird, and maybe I looked like one, too. Dazed, unmoving. Evan barely noticed, though. He settled the collar around my neck and adjusted it to a loose fit before slipping it closed and joining it to the end of the chain with the lock.

And all I could do was sway and blink at him, feeling the weight of that chain pulling me down. It was a light feeling, a hardly there sensation, but my tingling, hyperaware nerves felt the drag of every link drawing me to the bed. Perhaps Evan saw it, maybe he noted the overload behind my eyes. Possibly. But for whatever reason, he made a small sound, brushed what he had brought with him to the side, and folded me in his arms, tucking me to his chest and laying us both on the bed.

“Sleep, Saboteur,” he murmured against my ear and, against my will, I felt myself giving in. Felt myself melting into nothing in his arms with his heartbeat against my back. Warm with his arms around me.

And so… so… fucking confused.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... once again, this took far longer than I hoped for. So, take a longer chapter than normal in payment! Enjoy!

The following shifts of time where not easy for me to deal with. I just _couldn’t understand_! Evan had _untied_ me, he’d _released_ me from the tether that’d held me so long and all I’d done was _sit there_. Even if Evan would have just grabbed me and hauled me back, even if my _dumb ass_ attempt at getting away had pissed off the larger man to the point he finally got the hint I was _not_ his _pet_ and he’d finally broken me like the fragile thing I was, I _should_ _have_ fought. I _should have_ run. Or… shuffled as fast as I could…

I _should have_ done _something_ ! But I’d done nothing. I’d sat there. I’d let him collar me. And a few moments inspection, when Evan had left, was enough to tell me I wasn’t getting out of the collar. I’d pick my fingers raw and bloody before I scratched through the leather of Evan’s collar. And the lock was not going to come off without a key. Or something to pick it with. And I only had my nails. I was _screwed_. I’d screwed myself. Fucked myself over, yet again.

And wasn’t that just _fucking fabulous_?

True, as despondent and desperate as I was becoming, I _didn’t want to die_. I didn’t want to risk it, not knowing whether or not I’d come back. But… I didn’t understand. I’d _died_ before. Lots of _god damn times_. Not exactly sure about my fate after death or not, I shouldn’t have hesitated. An Evan coming after me, infuriated and outraged at my shit behavior, was an Evan I could understand. An Evan I could _get_. A steady part of my existence I could hold unto and count on. But a me that wasn’t willing to taunt and tempt killers into irrational action was a me I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know myself.

_Why?!_

_Why_ had I _sat still_?! Why had I done _nothing_?! Why had I _behaved_?!

No answer presented itself to me with the slow passing time. No answer, no explanation. Just the endless, nagging question clawing at the back of my mind and running in circles through it in ever-shifting, but ever-repeating forms. And Evan. Evan holding me every _night_. Evan coming to check on me every _day_. Evan grunting and prompting me to walk for him when his visits found me in the same spot, the same limp, unmoving position as when he left me.

Evan.

Evan my only company. The one who fed me, the one who held me. The one who’d murdered me countless times without mercy or consideration. I snuggled into his chest at what passed for _night_ and gripped his shirt in that place, that certain place, so I could feel his heart under my hand. I waited for him to come back to me during the Entity’s replicated days and I wondered what he did when he wasn’t with me.

Evan.

He was all I had and I hated him.

But I still let him do what he wanted, let him have his way. Walked when he said, “Get up, Saboteur,” in that rumbling voice behind his mask. Lay still and silent when he wanted to see my leg and didn’t complain when he yanked my pants off as if I were an unresisting doll. It didn’t _matter_. Evan wouldn’t _do_ anything but _treat me_ and I didn’t offer complaint of any kind for any reason.

For the first few _days_ after the shift from cuff to collar, I just sat slouched on the bed, head hanging and mind crawling. Always blurrily surprised when my hand crept up to pick at the cuff, only to find it wasn’t there. To encounter only the soft line of bandages covering cut skin. I would stare absently, not understanding, at the white material, until memory stole over my mind and I raised a hand to the collar.

Part of me always suggested picking at that, but Evan was right. I was less inclined to scratch at something life threatening. Like my neck. Despite it all, I still had that want to _bloody well fucking live_. And I wasn’t ready to risk perma-death because the Entity was being more of a jackass than normal.

I wanted to live.

And I wanted to get free.

And all of that brought me right back into another cycle of _why_.

I’d done nothing to get free the once chance I’d had. I’d just sat there and let Evan tether me. Allowed myself to be tied back up in the most humiliating way.

Like an animal.

_Why?_

_Why’d you do it, Jake? The fuck’s wrong with you?_

It wasn’t like me, what I’d done. It wasn’t like I was _afraid_ of pain or death, exactly. They were just things that got in the way of getting what you wanted. You had to keep doing shit, had to keep moving, had to keep _fighting_ and _scratching_ no matter what happened. If you got yourself dead in the process, well, at least you’d _tried_. You’d gone down snarling and smarting off.

Only I hadn’t. I’d willingly _given in_ , and I was clueless as to _why_.

How long my internally lacerating and tumbling, repetitious thoughts turned me round and round, I wasn’t sure. Time had left me behind long ago and got itself _lost_ , while I quickly fumbled my grasp on the one real, solid change in my captivity. I only knew my wrist healed up and my leg kept improving under Evan’s insistent eye.

Because Evan _was_ insistent. He was _relentless_. Whatever he wanted, he wouldn’t _let me rest_. Wouldn’t just _let me sleep_. When I proved myself to be unresponsive those first few sputters of Entity generated _time_ , Evan seemed to become fed up with me and my shit to the point, he would manhandle me upright if I didn’t listen to him. He would _purposefully annoy me_ until I snarled at him and did as I was told. Which was usually to get my ass off the bed and move around, or to eat some god damned _food_. Against my will and desire to _just fucking mope_ , Evan kept making me walk, kept making me hiss at him, until I started doing it out of reflex. Until I started gaining back part of my old attitude towards him, par force.

_Damn, irritating bastard!_

Part of me wanted to bite him again and not be sorry about it this time. I didn’t though. I glared at him and snarled when he got too close, but I always _behaved_ in the most deprecating way. Ultimately always doing as told, while awake, and crawling into Evan’s embrace when it was time to sleep, and not understanding any of it.

I would spend what might amount to hours out where time mattered, staring up at Evan with narrowed eyes, wondering just what the fuck. How had I ended up with _Evan_ of all people. Evan, the Trapper. Evan the first of the killers. Evan, the one who was taking care of me. How had I got _here_? With _Evan_? Tied to his bedpost like a little bitch.

But wondering did me no good.

Behaving did me no good.

Laying still and silent, while Evan tended my ever-improving injury did me no good.

Only… what? What was I supposed to _do_?

I had about as much answer for _that_ question as I did for the relentless _why_. Any other time I would just be a little shit and try to piss off whatever killer was around. But Evan was the only killer around and he… didn’t… want… to… kill… me… I didn’t know what the fuck he wanted. I didn’t know and I hated it!

Sometimes, I would end up punching a pillow over and over again, growling in frustration through clenched teeth. Only, my little bursts of anger seemed to leave me as listless as the depression still hollowing out my insides. It was hard to move when Evan wasn’t around. Hard to move when he wasn’t there to encourage me with rough, hot hands to, “Get moving, Saboteur.”

It would have almost been nice to be biting mad more often, but I never seemed capable of holding the emotion, of keeping it captive. All too quickly, the feeling would dissipate out of my grasp, leaving me tired and limp, curled around a pillow for comfort, an exhausted ball of survivor, as weary and achy as if I’d stupidly stuck my leg into another god damn bear trap.

Confusion and depression were a combined state of being I decided I did not like existing in. It wasn’t exactly one I was used to being in. Everything that’d happened in my life taken together, I couldn’t remember ever being this unsure of what to do with myself. I’d always known exactly what I _didn’t want_ to do before and so always done just the opposite, imaging that must be what I _did want_ to do. But not even this system worked with Evan in _this_ situation. I _didn’t want_ to cuddle him, but I’d become all too used to the sound of his heart pounding in my ear as I drifted off, and the feel of that heart under my palm while I slept.

_Why?_

Nothing made sense as I drifted along through the Entity’s no-time. Nothing but that need to do _something_. Anything. Even a small resistance to mitigate the pattern of my obedience.

The thought haunted me, clung to me, wore me out. An insistent and bitter thread woven through every moment Evan was there and every one he was elsewhere. It was worse when Evan was there, though. A sharp pang that leaked all through me, adding to my lethargy and confusion, and hitting its peaks in those moments when Evan examined my leg. Touching me with those hands that could kill but were somehow concerned with my wellbeing.

He’d long ago taken the bandages off and the stitches out, his attention going to feeling the muscles under my skin and how they flexed below large, but dexterous, fingers, but he still took off my damn pants, despite the fact rolling up my pant leg would now give him all the access he’d need. He still half undressed me with the ease and impatience of an efficient man, unwilling to take shit from a damn, little pest. A little pest who couldn’t help looking down at him from under the arm I braced myself on, with my face hidden in a pillow, so he wouldn’t see me watching him through my lashes. Wouldn’t see the little trembles in my arms folded under the pillow. The shivers that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with something I couldn’t explain.

Evan had manhandled me and treated me like a _fucking doll_ since he’d pried apart his bear trap and slung me over his shoulder, like so much dead weight. But he’d never tried to make those touches more intimate, never shown any interest for anything but my torn up leg. For all his cuddling and comfort, he didn’t push for more. He could have, he could have got whatever he bloody well wanted and I couldn’t do shit about it. But Evan only followed the lines of my near-healed injury with his fingertips and focused all of his considerable attention there, until he was satisfied. He patted my thigh when it was done, rumbling from behind his mask, “You’re doing well, Saboteur.” Either words of praise or words expressing the state of my once-mangled leg, I wasn’t sure.

Wasn’t sure…

There were a lot of things I wasn’t sure about. Why was Evan doing this? What did he get out of it, aside from a grumpy, uncooperative me, who’d already bitten him once? Did he not find me attractive at all?

The last question struck me out of nowhere and I curled into a ball around the pillow I clutched, once I had my pants back on and Evan was up and moving. He glanced at me and murmured, “There’s something wrong with you,” and I knew it likely wasn’t in my best interest to lay so listless and clearly apathetic with Evan nearby, but the thought I should _want_ Evan to find me attractive had shorted out something in my brain.

Was I bloody _stupid_? What kind of _god damn_ idea was that? It was a _good thing_ Evan hadn’t tried to touch me. It _saved me_ the trouble of having to bite and scratch and piss him off enough to see if the Entity really had decided to be a dick and up and left us to roam around its realm until we kicked it for real. I should have been _grateful_!

But all I was was still curled in that ball when Evan came back with my food. He dropped it on the table with a grunt and was half turned away when he must have noticed I wasn’t moving. The larger man paused and pivoted on his feet, movements surprisingly graceful and quiet for his size. He fixed me with his flat, appraising gaze and I tucked my face further into the pillow, curling tighter around it, as if for protection, but it was impossible to escape Evan’s burrowing glance. No matter what had happened in the approximation of _time_ I’d been with Evan, I’d always moved to eat. I’d always padded across the expanse of bed, to the edge near the table to claim the food he brought for me. Always. Until now.

I didn’t want to. I didn’t want the tasteless food. I didn’t know what I wanted, but moving from my curl around that pillow scented heavily of Evan, of me, inexplicably of us both, was not what it was. And that… that small thing, that small resistance, what was something I could deliver.

Whimpering low down in my throat, I made myself as small as I could. A tiny, confused knot of survivor, eyes squeezed closed, wrapped around Evan MacMillan’s pillow. Uncertain of what he would do. Of what I _wanted_ him to do. Of the fact I perhaps _wanted_ him to do _anything_.

And Evan’s words seemed to speak my heart. “There really is something wrong with you.”

Wrong with me… yes. Something wrong with me and I didn’t know what. Didn’t know anything but that Evan was kneeling on the bed and reaching for me. The bed sank under his weight and his hands threatened to turn me over, to tear me from my huddled ball, and I hissed at him, eyes springing open to lance him with venom. And open worry.

“What’s going on, Saboteur?” Evan murmured, pulling me toward him.

Snarling, or was it whining, I fought to remain tight around that pillow. Hard and unyielding and anything Evan _didn’t want_. But Evan was stronger than me, had always been stronger than me. He pried me apart, wrenched me off the pillow I clung to like it was some stupid life line, and despite how I fought and scratched and hissed, I still ended up on my back with Evan pinning me down.

The man held my wrists above my head, one in each hand, and his knees pressed my trembling legs into the mattress, so I couldn’t flail and kick him. Admittedly, the weight on the leg I’d injured was minimal, but the leg still spasmed under it. All of me so quickly worn out by the short engagement. And yet… it didn’t seem I was the only one. We both panted, looking at each other. Breaths ragged, eyes weary. And… and something else. Something I didn’t want to admit, but that Evan noted all the same, his placid face and flat gaze betraying only a flicker of what he felt.

My pants were tented and my face flushed with more than anger and exertion and Evan _knew_ it. He bloody well _saw it_! It wasn’t hard to see…

“So, that’s what you want, is it?” Evan rumbled, and I wanted to deny it. Wanted to pretend I _didn’t want_ Evan to have an interest, to have some _god damn_ feeling for me, but I couldn’t. My eyes were blown wide and my heart cried out _affection, affection, affection_ with each rapid, unsteady beat.

I’d wanted to do something and I’d fought Evan and now I… I didn’t want to fight. I was tired. I wanted hot hands on me. Wanted warmth. Wanted… Evan’s hands…

Helpless under the man, it wasn’t like I had much choice. I just lay and breathed and watched him. Waiting.

But Evan just shook his head and grunted. “I don’t think so, Saboteur.” His hands loosened on my wrists and his weight shifted off my legs. “Not without your asking first.”

A snarl worked its way up my throat but something else came out through clenched teeth when it found its way to my mouth. “Fuck me!” The words were followed by a whine, a real whine, as my face crumbled down into surprise and wounded uncertainty. My eyes, soft and shocked, met Evan’s appraising ones. I’d done so much to _not_ speak to him and the words I’d finally said were ones I‘d never thought I’d utter to Evan. I might have hauled a _fuck you_ at him, but the reverse, spoken as actual invitation…

_There’s something wrong with you…_

The words were whisper but I paid them no mind. All of me was shaking and I turned my head away, trying to hide from Evan the only way I could, with him still holding me down. But hiding from Evan never proved effective. His lips pressed up under my jaw, pushing my head up and making my pulse jerk under his probing mouth.

I’d never really been tasted like that before and I didn’t like it. It left me feeling vulnerable, my throat exposed, and I wiggled and whined, wishing Evan would just shuck my pants off like so many times before when he tended my leg.

Maybe my discomfort showed through. Maybe Evan noted the noises coming out of me weren’t enjoyment and the flutter of my pulse wasn’t excitement. Whatever it was, the larger man stopped. He made a soft rumbling sound, almost a purr, and pulled back. His hands let go of my wrists, then brushed and skimmed down my chest and stomach, to my hips. I raised those pathetically, and Evan took the message, pulling off my pants and letting me turn over.

Because I wanted that. I wanted my face in the pillows and to _not see_ Evan. Unconsciously, I gathered a mound of softness below my face. I pulled it to me and raised myself on my knees with legs that still trembled. _Get on with it_ , was a thought I harbored. Words I’d tossed at David when he wanted foreplay and I wanted fucked. Words I constantly saw stung him but that I spit out anyway. Couldn’t hold back. _Get on with it._ So much could be summed up in those words.

But I didn’t say them. Not to Evan. And he did what he wanted. He didn’t speak to me, maybe knowing I wouldn’t like that, either. Instead, there were soft sounds and a scent I recognized behind me. Something from Evan’s traps. Whatever he used to keep their small parts operating smoothly. I hadn’t thought of a lube, hadn’t anticipated one, but it made sense Evan would have this with him. Likely he carried it for trap repairs. Now it was for me.

His hands were hot on my hips, angling me how he wanted me, but they were even hotter slicked and exploring me. My hips jerked and stuttered, while Evan moved his fingers in and out, but I didn’t make a sound. Just held myself still, with my face buried in pillows. My silence didn’t even change when Evan switched from fingers to something larger. I just knelt there and took it in with weak legs and slitted eyes.

All that altered was the rate of my breathing, as Evan rocked me forward into the mattress, his hands sliding over my hips to wrap around me and hold me up. As if afraid my injured leg would give out and pitch me forward. I didn’t care. I kept my mouth shut, apart from little gasps and huffs while I strained into it all. I could feel Evan behind me and I could feel every link of the chain connected to the collar around my neck dragging me down. Dragging me… seeming to pull me down into the folds of sheets beneath me. So soft as my mind dimmed around the edges.

How long it all went on, I wasn’t sure, but Evan didn’t bother to touch me until after he came, and that was just fine with me. By that point, Evan’s wide, hot palm grasping me and easing me into oblivion was more than relief. It was mind-numbing and essential. Hard, dripping, Evan only needed to stroke me a little to have me clenching down around him, where he was still inside me, and finally having me crying out like I was in pain.

My mind hazed up and went dark and all I could remember were Evan’s hands running up and down my back, under my shirt and over every ridge of my vertebrae, careful, almost reverent, while he murmured, “Little wild thing,” to me over and over before I lost touch with reality.

I came to in Evan’s arms, of course. It was as near as it ever came to _day_ in the Entity’s realm, and I was dressed and not sticky with leftover, tacky fluids from what my heavy mind recalled doing before I’d inadvertently lost consciousness. A thing telling me Evan had not only cleaned us both up, but courteously dressed me before pulling me into his arms, tucking me to his chest, and letting us sleep.

Heavy. My body was as heavy as my mind. Weighted. And achy in all the ways one would expect after what I couldn’t deny I’d done with Evan MacMillan. Simply laid there and let him fuck me. Asked him to do it even.

Why had I done that?

The answer was inexplicable. As ungraspable as all the other _whys_ I had no explanation for. Had no way of understanding. I’d done it and that was that and Evan was breathing slowly at my back, his exhalations ruffling my hair. His body warm against me. Solid. And I rebelled against it.

I struggled limply in his arms, hot, angry, exhausted tears pricking my eyes. Sobs worked their way up my burning throat and I clenched my teeth against them, as I fought to keep the liquid from spilling out. I didn’t want to _cry_ , damn it! I didn’t want _this_! I didn’t know… know… what I wanted.

Evan felt my weak stirrings and made a sound of annoyance over my head. A sleepy, huffing sound of half-wakefulness that said he did not wish to move yet, and wanted the pest of a wild thing he was holding to be still and let him sleep. Maybe I would have, maybe I wouldn’t, but Evan gave me no choices. Yet again, he reminded me of the differences in our sizes and maneuvered me so quickly I hardly noticed what was happening until it was done. Abruptly I was turned, so we were suddenly no longer laying with my back to his chest, but chest-to-chest. The big man pulled me tighter to him and murmured something intelligible before settling back into full sleep.

Held that way, unable even to squirm more than inches any longer, all I could do was let my head fall back and stare up at his face. His face so much nearer to me than I ever wanted or expected it to be because the only way I ever thought to see it this close was right before he put an end to me. Things tangled up in my mind and something constricted my chest. I drew an unsteady hand up his chest to that place I pressed my ear to at _night_. Evan’s heart pulsed against my palm, calm and rhythmic and familiar.

So familiar…

This was Evan.

Evan who had pulled me out of one of his traps. Evan who cared for me and patiently bound up all the stupid, dumb-ass things I did to myself. Evan who had killed me so many times I could no longer recall them all.

Evan.

 _Evan_ , the name whispered through my mind on a whine and I pressed my cheek to his chest, rubbed it against his shirt, teeth clenched so tight I felt my jaw creak. I didn’t want to _think_ about _Evan_. I didn’t want to _understand_ just _what the fuck_ I’d done. I _wanted_ to _sleep_ … sleep with that heart in my ear and Evan’s arms warm around me. Sleep until the tears stopped rolling down my face and my heart stopped aching as though it were being torn to ragged shreds.

It was all too much, but it was warm with Evan’s arms around me and I willed myself to sleep.

After, Evan took me from behind almost every _night_ before we slept. I didn’t mind it. With my face buried in my arms and Evan buried in me, I could almost forget Evan was more or less doing this because I wanted him to. Almost let myself feel this was an answer to all the _whys_. Almost pretend this was what Evan had wanted all along.

Almost.

But not quite.

Because Evan never touched me unless I initiated. Never moved beyond his relentless _cuddling_ unless I asked for it, unless I crawled into his lap or pressed myself to him or put up a fuss in his arms until I got my way. Got what I wanted.

What I wanted…

Why… did I… want… that… with Evan?

_There’s something wrong with you._

The words were a whips through my mind every time I saw Evan. Every time I lowered my eyes and rubbed up against him for attention. A whips… A pang. A lure that would have made hiding in the _almosts_ a welcome delusion if the reality called Evan MacMillan hadn’t persisted in tearing apart my pleasant lie. Evan was _still_ an enigma, what he wanted _still_ a mystery, and I _knew_ it, couldn’t _avoid_ it, even if I _tried_. The _almosts_ were pointless in the face of it all. Evan was always consistently and obviously _happy_ to _have_ me if I wanted it, but was otherwise just _there_.

There watching my leg slowly continue to mend. There not hurting me, but not exactly being _kind_ , either. Just… doing whatever he damn well wanted, with no explanation. Just continually making me eat, making me walk, minding my leg, making sure all the intricate parts of it worked according to design. Just _being_ Evan. Being the ever-intent, meticulous killer who’d stalked me numerous times… Just, minding me as the Entity’s un-time spun on and on and I lost ever more of a grasp on it. Lost hold, lost touch, lost it all in a blind, numb haze.

I wasn’t even aware of when I gave into the lull of blurring _now_ , became tangled in the insistent _instant_. Wasn’t conscious of when I stopped thinking about getting away, stopped thinking about the others and the campfire and roaming through the fog. Didn’t realize those things had slipped from my thoughts and through my fingers and all had turned to all the moments Evan wasn’t with me and all the consuming seconds he was, and I curled against him, his body warm on mine. Didn’t understand it, until he made me.

My leg had been fully healed for some amount of _time_ I couldn’t identify. Didn’t care to identify. All I knew was I could stand and I could walk, when Evan told me to, without thinking about it. Without it hurting. Occasionally, the leg would throb or ache for no damn reason, but for the most part, it was like I’d never gone and stuck my leg in a fucking bear trap like an idiot. Evan still checked it, still ran his fingers over the ridges of scars, but he didn’t have to _do_ anything with it anymore, and his attentions had taken on a different rhythm, a new texture, as if they were reflective and Evan wasn’t sure about _stopping_ even if there wasn’t any reason to _continue_.

I didn’t think about it. Didn’t _care_. Something was broke deep down, snapped, and all I felt was a low, staticky buzz in my mind. It didn’t even register something different was happening when Evan came in, took off his mask, sat on the bed, opened his arms, and commanded, “Come here, Saboteur.”

It wasn’t often Evan demanded cuddles during what passed as _day_ in the Entity’s realm, but nothing made sense and I didn’t _care_. I just whined, dropped my gaze, and _went_ to Evan. He held gathered me up like I had no weight at all and held me on his lap so long I fell into a twitching doze, gripping his shirt in tight fingers, with my head drooping on his chest. Warm and Evan and lulling _normality_.

Until it wasn’t. Until it was something else.

I came awake to a slight weight removed and a subtle shift in the feel of my body. I frowned at it, brow knit, lips turned down, eyes shut, and fingers gripping Evan tighter. What was it? Too long relying on internal instinct for survival had sharpened some perceptions down in me and I felt uneasy _not knowing_ what had happened. But Evan was still holding me and surely that counted toward nothing being _wrong_. Didn’t it?

“I know you’re awake, Saboteur,” Evan rumbled above me, and I made some soft sounds of annoyance at suddenly being put down on the bed.

Half inclined to hiss and toss an aggrieved glare at him, I sat up, my eyes springing open. The hiss died on my lips and I found myself blinking in confusion. Blinking in an uncomprehending daze. Between us, resting close to my fingertips on the sheets, was the collar and chain. The collar was _open_.

Trembling, my fingers moved to touch the leather and fell short. Evan had taken my collar off.

Evan had…

My vision fractured and doubled, doubled again, and I felt myself falling. There was the half sensation of Evan catching me and words that rolled together over me, unheard, but once again, as when Evan had first found me and carted me into his house, my mind and body had agreed enough was _mother fucking enough_ already, and they weren’t going to take anymore. They were going to turn off, take a break, hit pause, and all I could do was _go along_ with it.

I didn’t know _what the fuck_ and I couldn’t _hack it_ right then. Didn’t even want to _deal_ with whatever was going on. It took Evan shaking me and tapping the side of my face roughly with a finger to bring me back.

And even then, I _didn’t want_ to wake up.

I was mostly draped over one of Evan’s massive arms, stirring weakly, half laying in his lap again, and starring blurrily up at him. Evan grunted disgust and shifted me to sit at the edge of the bed, demanding, “Get up, Saboteur.”

As shaken as I was, I had no notion of refusing and swayed to my feet. Evan would have only forced the matter if I hadn’t. Grabbed me or tossed me over his shoulder or… or…

 _Or what?_ I questioned. _What_ did Evan _want_ , and _what_ would he _do_ if I didn’t _give_ it to him? I raised weary eyes to him and found the man watching me, gaze indecipherable as ever.

“Come on, Saboteur,” he murmured after a moment, and I stumbled to follow him. More because my legs were unsteady then stiff or pained. Only to pause when my keeper opened the door and eyed me. Curious if I would bolt.

I didn’t. Staring unblinking instead, until Evan sighed and told me to, “Come here, Saboteur.” I did and I stuck close to Evan’s side, jumping at the slightest sounds, all through the MacMillan manor and over the grounds, to the edge of Evan’s territory, where my silent guide stopped.

Unreality was a blanketing wave that wouldn’t let me _make sense_ of this, wouldn’t let me _process_ , god damn it, and I just kept looking between Evan and the fog, where it undulated and swirled slowly so close by. Head jerking back and forth, while my body went on trembling and I whined something low in my throat.

How long this would have gone on, how long I would have _just stood there_ like a jackass, if Evan hadn’t taken control of the matter, I’m not sure. But the larger man was never one to let situations _drag_ and he took me in his huge hands, turned me toward the fog, and gave me a little push.

I tripped a few paces forward because Evan was never exactly _gentle_ , then spun, dizzy, to face the man. Might even have taken a step back toward him if he hadn’t growled, “Go on. Get out of here.”

Uncertain, confused, I stood wavering a moment. _Go on. Get out of here._ They were the words one would say to some small, sharp-toothed animal. Some wild creature that’d been injured, taken in, and made too accustomed to _being cared for_. Words delivered to tell that near-tamed thing to leave. To remind it its place was _outside_. Had always _been_ outside.

_Go on._

_Get out of here._

_Unwanted._

That would stung something deep in me and I took a step back, watching Evan with wide, unsettled eyes, still trembling, saw him stay impassive, steady, _fucking uncaring_ , took another step back, turned, and bolted into the fog like there was a killer on my heels.

How long and how far I ran before crumpled up from physical exertion, something I was no longer used to, was incalculable in the Entity’s realm. I went until I was heaving breaths so hard my chest ached and my heart was beating painfully against my ribs. Until I was good and truly _lost_ for once. Lost in the fog and tired and—

My knees seemed to give out and I sunk to the ground.

Evan… had let me go, let me free, let me _out_! But _why_?! _Why_ had he _done_ that?! _Any_ of that?! _Why_ had he pulled me out of his trap?! _Why_ had he taken care of me?! _Why_ had he just _let me leave_?! Just _what the fuck_ was _this_?!

I didn’t _understand_ , god _damn it_!

 _Any_ of _it_!

Didn’t he _want_ anything?! Didn’t he _want me_?!

My arms snaked around my chest and I tucked my face into my scarf, my teeth clenched hard against tears I didn’t want to let fall. Nothing felt right, nothing made sense but it was cold without Evan’s arms around me.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And however many chapters became six and six is where we end. I am sitting here and I honestly want to thank all of you for going through this story with me. I never expected this much love on this piece and I am almost sorry to see it over, but it is. And I'm happy to see it come to an end. All good stories do and this be one of my favorites now, I think.
> 
> But anyway! The end means it's link time! If you haven't yet, you should read [Pest Control](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768081) by [Tridraconeus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus). This is the series that started me off writing this "little, 2k at most" ramble you've read. It's the series that made me fall painfully, head-over-heels in love with one Jake Park. Like, been pushed down the stairs and I can't take it back now, love with a fictional character. So, defiantly worth a read. And on the same note, if you haven't, I recommend reading [Things in Chains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26365690), also by Tridraconeus. I think I've read this more than a couple dozen times now and I'm not sorry. And last but not least, please have a look and this lovely [fan art](https://imgbox.com/9rEVqt0z#) [saltybacon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltybacon) was kind enough to draw. It is amazing and I still can't say how much I love it.
> 
> Oh! Nearly forgot. If you want it there is a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLIFJZDPAGGlR98XBY_A5EQOmsYdUi3lm) for this fic. Enjoy!

I went back to the campfire, of course. There wasn’t much else to _mother fucking do_ , once I’d gotten cold and disgusted with myself for sitting there _fucking bawling_ because Evan MacMillan had decided he’d had enough of taking care of the aggravating and ungrateful pest who’d been damn stupid and clumsy enough to get caught in one of his traps. To get himself stuck and torn up like an idiot.

The idea should have pissed me off, the notion of Evan being such a _bloody jerk_ , should have got me moving out of sheer indignation and the desire to screw with Evan, the Trapper, in any way possible, to wreck his traps and disrupt his life, until the man tried to put an end to mine out of simple annoyance. It should have roused those old embers of playful mischief that delighted in driving killers mad until they got _fed up_ , and _messed up_ in one way or another. It should have… only it didn’t.

It was the cold that got me going. After I’d cried myself dry-eyed and sat hunched up with my arms around my drawn-up knees until I was shivering with the Entity’s idea of nighttime cold, I got up and got going. Because I didn’t want to be _freaking cold_. It was too much of a reminder I was out there on my own because Evan was a _dick_.

So, after a few false starts, missteps, wrong turns, an unplanned encounter with the Doctor, and a near-miss run in with Philip, the Wraith, I finally walked back into the circle around the campfire. Not with the cocky swagger I’d envisioned laying on Evan’s bed so many times, but more as though I was slinking in, hoping not to be noticed, in a hunched slouch, with my hands down deep in the pockets of my track jacket and my eyes averted. Doubtless looking more like a bedraggled, disgruntled cat that’d been left out in the rain, than anything. Than the me who’d smirk at killers and dare them to come after me.

My unannounced arrival out of no-where, after _who knew how long_ , was the cause of more than a small stir in what I guessed had become an increasingly tense situation after my undue disappearance. Partly _because_ of my disappearance. After the initial _pleasure_ of the fact I _was alive_ wore off, and honestly _that_ didn’t last all that _long_ , there was more than a little irritation and more than a few, “Where the fuck have you been, Jakes,” hurled at me.

Though, once the others realized I was more than my usual disinclined to talk about just _where_ I’d been and _why_ I hadn’t come back, once they realized how I was just sitting there, closed in on myself and not snapping back or tossing impertinent jabs around, their rightful irk turned to something else. Silence and crumbled looks of pity. As if they were all suddenly unwilling to ask me _who’d_ done _what_ to me.

Unexpectedly, it was Quentin who made them all leave me the heck alone. Quentin, looking the worst I’d ever seen him, haggard and pale and bone-weary, who sat by me and offered me silent, undemanding comfort. Normally, I would have told him to fuck off, but god damn, the man needed a nap and it’d been a long time since I’d slept alone.

Waking up next to him only made things worse, though. Because I _never_ let anyone sleep by me at the campfire. Never allowed anyone near enough to hint at vulnerability, and now here I was with Quentin holding onto me and frowning at me, gazing sorrowfully at me through watery, blurred eyes that said _he_ hadn’t slept, even if I had, and the others attempting not even to glance at me. Unsettled. As if, if they looked at me, I might break or scurry away or snap at them, more likely. And their eyes flittered over me the remainder of the day, even after I snarled and freed myself from Quentin’s arms and went off to sit by myself moodily, hunched up like some ruffled bird with its feathers a disarranged, motley mess. It was like they couldn’t look at me straight. None of them. Except Quentin, which was weird and telling in and of itself, that the one was normally looked at in the _he needs to be taken care_ _of_ light was now looking at _me_ as though _I_ needed to be taken care of.

Which _I didn’t_! I might have been _pissed_ at that bitch MacMillan, but I was _perfectly fine_ , and I wished everyone would _stop_ , just _stop_.

Only, they _wouldn’t_ and they _didn’t_. I could have gone with them to scavenge food and necessities, but they kept treating me like I was something _delicate_ that could _break_ at any second and wouldn’t let me go. I _could_ have just said fuck it and scooted on my own to get away from their constant, never-ending _shit_ , but look where that had landed me last time: tied to Evan’s bed for goodness knew _how long_. So I stuck it out, stuck to our little spit of _safe_ ground, while the others whispered and cast sidelong looks at me when they thought I couldn’t see. While they stopped talking whenever I came near, even if they’d been _shouting_ at each other a moment before, and refused to _be mad at me_ , even when I was a little shit to them.

And wasn’t that just _fabulous_?! Fucking _Evan_ had to have gone and messed with me and messed me up and made everyone act like… like I was _bloody hurt_! I _wasn’t_! I was _fine_! Just fine! And if anyone thought different they were misinformed! It was all _Evan’s_ fault. Screwing up what little life I _had_ at the campfire, when there wasn’t anywhere else I could _go_! When I was as trapped _here_ as I’d been in _his house_.

 _Fucking Evan._ I _hated_ the man. And I _hated_ that I couldn’t get him out of my head… That he lingered there, a hot, impregnable thing I couldn’t evict or dispose of. _Evan._ He was there when I was awake, haunting my nerves and memories, as if I could still feel his heat on my skin, and all the more acutely because of its absence. Could still imagine the pressure of his arms around me, holding me still when I squirmed to get away. His shadowy presence was always just over my shoulder, making me turn my head, just out of my reach, but making my hands search for the nothing that was him absently, without my knowing, keeping me awake, keeping me twitching and pacing. And _of course_ he would be there when I slept, if I slept. Because I couldn’t get away from the phantom feel of him. It made me want to scratch at my skin. Scratch it off. And I had to keep my nails away from my arms because I _would_ scratch if I wasn’t careful and mindful. The others noted it and cleared their throats uncomfortably when they saw me doing it.

My only comfort, the only _decent_ thing in all this mess, was the fact _all_ the others were there. None of them had _died_ and _stayed dead_ looking for the jackass, _me_ , who’d just _had_ to run off on his own without telling anyone and stick his leg in a trap. They _had_ looked… They’d even poked around Evan’s territory, _wondering_ about traps, stupidly enough. Quentin told me so and it was proof enough that Meg had a new scar from it, from a run in with the _Oni_ , Kazan, she was pissed about. Not that she’d _fight_ with me about it, not even when I tried to _engage_ her in a spat… That was aggravating, but… Alive. They were all still alive, still _there_ , and that was a relief. Even if I wanted to snarl at the lot of them for being _pricks_.

Sometimes I sat and I wondered just how many times I’d daydreamed about this tied to Evan’s bed. _Wished_ to be back at the campfire. How often had I done that? Pretty often, I was sure, or I’d be able to remember a more exact number. And now, here I was. Back at the campfire… back to a fucked up semblance of how things were when things were still _normal_ in the Entity’s realm. And I couldn’t stand it. What was I supposed to do? The others didn’t exactly want me _leaving_ to go anywhere now that I _was back_ and there was hella _nothing_ to do around camp, except fuck. Fucking had always been the main pass time around the campfire and that really hadn’t changed… and after a few _days_ of aimlessly scratching at my skin and generally jacking off, I went back to fucking David too. Because at least that was _something to do_ , because at least he _let me be_ for a moment, instead of acting like I could _break_ if he touched me. David let me saunter out from behind trees, let me needle him, incite him until he fucked me into the ground. And _that_ was a relief too. _That_ let me feel _SOMETHING hadn’t changed_ for a _god damn minute_.

Though, not for much longer than that. The first time, after David had turned me over and fucked me until both of us were fairly sore and exhausted, I tried crawling into his arms to huddle against his chest. It was thoughtless. A basic reflex too much time with _Evan_ had cultivated and I regretted it instantly. David’s look turned from passive acceptance I would yank up my pants, say something flippant, and walk off, to the same clipped pity everyone but Quentin seemed to aim at me. The same look, as if he were suddenly afraid to know who had done what to what part of me, and I wrenched away from him, hissing and snarling.

I _did not_ want to be _pitied_. I _didn’t need_ to be _pitied_.

And from then on, snarling was the way I had to deal with David, in order to be sure he _didn’t look at me like that_. I snarled to get his attention, snarled to get him to fuck me, snarled to get him to leave me _the fuck alone_ afterward. Because he tried to make it up, tried to make it right, tried to make it _easy_ for me again. But whatever he _tried_ , he couldn’t stop looking at me with sad, hurt eyes, as if he was sorry for me. I didn’t _need_ him to be _sorry for me_ , either! I didn’t _need anything_! I was _fine_!

Only I _wasn’t_ and I _did_. I did need something. I _needed_ to be _warm_ and I needed to stop _scratching_ and the only way I seemed able to _get warm_ and _hold still_ was to be with _someone else_. As if Evan had stolen my ability to generate heat and capacity for repose all at once, all I could do was sit and shiver, with my arms wrapped around my chest and my nails digging, digging at my shoulders through my track jacket. But even bunched up over the campfire itself, staring absently into its shifting flames, I couldn’t get warm, just _fucking stayed cold_. Unless I was pressed up against someone else there was just no resting, and the only one I could stand being close to for any length of _time_ happened to be Quentin.

Just my luck, Quentin was the only one who never looked at me like I was _broke_ , never looked at me with _pity_. Only base understanding and something else, something I couldn’t identify. Something like resignation or recognition, like he knew more than I did, somehow. I didn’t like it, didn’t _trust_ it, but whatever it was, Quentin never expected anything from me, never asked questions I didn’t want to answer. Just let me huddle up by him, let me cling to him with my arms around his waist and my face in his lap. Even let me slink to his side, during what passed for _nights_ in the Entity’s realm, after everyone else was _sure_ to be asleep and couldn’t _see_ , and curl up in his arms to be held.

The only thing he ever said about it, low and sidelong, as if knowing looking me in the face would only piss me off or scare me off, was, “If you want to be held, then get over here.” It reminded me of Evan and I hated that too.

Ultimately, I didn’t _like any of it_ , didn’t like _Quentin_ , but I really couldn’t keep _warm_ , really couldn’t keep _still_ , unless I had someone’s arms around me. And if I pushed up my way into Quentin’s arms at _night_ , if I made myself small and shoved my face up against his chest, at least I could sleep with a heart beating in my ear for a few manufactured _hours_. Even if that heart was _all wrong_ , somehow, even if the arms around me were _too small_ , at least I could _fucking sleep_.

Because, thanks to _Evan_ , I couldn’t seem to do _that_ , either. Not by myself. And since I didn’t much want to be around Quentin _every, single night_ , I started to look like him fairly quickly. Dark circles deepening under my eyes and hollows spreading in my already thin cheeks.

I looked like a _fucking wreck_ and it was _Evan’s fucking fault_.

And the more I looked exhausted and distant and the red lines on my arms, where my nails racked unconsciously, grew, the more the others made it miserable around the campfire. The more they acted like I was some _injured thing_ that needed their _help_. I didn’t _want_ their _help_.

It came to the point it was almost another relief when the Trials started up again, unannounced and unheralded. One moment we were all sitting around the campfire or standing or leaning on trees or arguing, and the next we were all wrapped in swirling, clinging fog and summoned away to separate Trials, like nothing had happened. Like there’d never been a break and nothing had been _odd_ or _peculiar_ or _different_. Like the Entity hadn’t been a _dick_ and just up and _disappeared_ and left us to _rot_ in its _fucking realm_ , going crazy like a bunch of _animals_. Like everything was _normal_.

But things _had_ been different and everyone, killers and survivors alike, had a lot of pent up _rage_ and _anxiety_ and _fear_ to work out, and those first few Trials were _bloody awful_. Very few of us even made it to the hooks because we got cut down first. Me especially. I’d been doing far less physical activity than the others over the course of the Entity’s little, unexplained _vacation_ and I was slow and I was not quick on the uptake and I got dead _a lot_ and _fast_.

Not that I _cared_. The Entity was a prick and it was a pity it hadn’t fucked off permanently, but at least Trials were something _to do_ , something _away_ from the campfire. And the worst of the killers’ needing to work out their frustrations tapered off fairly quickly. Then… then things really were back to fucking, bloody _normal_. Go to Trial, get dead, go back to campfire, recoup, repeat. No time to think, no time to be miserable, no time to wonder what Evan was doing or if he even missed me at all.

_Evan…_

What had he done, after he’d told me to leave? Told me to go, to get out of there. Had he gone back to that bedroom we’d shared and stripped the sheets from the bed? Had he torn the cases from the pillows and tugged the chain from the headboard? Removed all trace of me from our bed. Had he put his cloths back in the bureau and his things back on the table? Did he even sleep in that room anymore? Or had his being there only been because I’d been a fun distraction… A bit of amusement, while the Entity was away doing god knew what.

When I’d been gone some time, did Evan wander his territory, looking for any small trace to show I’d come back, even just to annoy him. Did he look to see if his traps were wrecked or if I’d stupidly got myself stuck in another set of their iron jaws? When he found nothing, did he care? Was he at all curious if I’d even made it back to the campfire, or if I’d gotten myself entangled with another killer, instead? I _had_ almost done that. Twice even… Almost got myself killed before I got back to _safety_. Did Evan _think_ about that? Did he _care_?

I _shouldn’t_ have _cared_ what Evan was doing, I _shouldn’t_ have _wondered_ at all, but I _did_ , and every time the fog took me I shivered in chilled anticipation, wondering if this would be the time. If this would be the Trial I’d get to see Evan. And every time it wasn’t and some other killer sent me reeling back to the campfire I found myself crawling back to Quentin, after everyone else was _sure to be asleep_ , to have a good cry.

Once, after it’d been the Doctor who’d given me a particularly bad death for _fucking around_ instead of _paying attention_ , Quentin let me cry myself out and almost cry myself into near-exhausted, over-taxed sleep, before keeping his gaze level over my shoulder, as if, once again, knowing if he met my eyes I’d bolt, and deadpan asking, “Have you ever just considered going back?”

The question had me awake and had me going stiff in his arms because _of course_ Quentin would be the one to figure it out. I knew what all the others thought, what they suspected had happened to poor Jake who’d just had to run off and play around and hadn’t come back for _god knew_ how long, and I let them go on thinking _whatever the bloody fuck_ they wanted because _how the hell_ was I _supposed_ to _explain_ what I _didn’t get_ , what I _didn’t understand_! I didn’t even know why Evan had done _any of it_! But whatever else Quentin was, however exhausted and strung out he perpetually was, the man _was not slow_. He was quiet and he was distant and he watched instead of talking and he’d somehow _got it_. He’d somehow put things together after seeing me shambling around in Trials, as if I was intentionally _trying_ to catch a glimpse of the killer there to murder us, after observing the new scars I sported on my leg and wrist, after watching me wander around the campfire like a lost thing, Quentin had somehow _saw through everything_ and he _knew_ and he— he—

I made a little sound and shoved against his chest, trying to _get away_ from the man holding me. He was slower than Evan and weaker and I managed to turn away and nearly scramble off before Quentin was able to grab me and pull me back hard against his chest. He held me tight there, arms constricting around me, and I let him. He _wasn’t_ Evan and only a little bigger than me and I could have pulled away, could have pulled free, but I only lay there, crying myself out for the second time. Crying like a _stupid idiot_ because Quentin had _figured it out_. Whatever _it_ was!

Because I _didn’t know_ and _fucking hated_ it! Fucking hated _Evan_!

And I didn’t… didn’t know what to do… And Quentin didn’t offer any advice. He didn’t offer any words to sooth me. Just gave me his _arms_ and his _silence_ and, worst of all, his _understanding_.

He _tried_ , he attempted to help in a way that would not upset me, but it didn’t matter. That was the last time I let Quentin touch me. If I couldn’t _sleep_ by myself, then I just _wouldn’t sleep_. Quentin bloody well didn’t _sleep_ , and _he_ seemed to do _just fine_! I didn’t _need_ to _sleep_. I didn’t _need anything_!

Anything at all…

If the others noticed me sitting alone even more, staring off unseeing into the flames of the campfire during the Entity’s _days_ and all through its frigid _nights_ , they didn’t seem to dare say anything. And Quentin seemed to know not to try with me again. On occasion, I caught him glancing at me, considering, half curious, _willing_ , but he just let me be. Let me alone. For which I was grateful. I needed to be left alone.

_Alone…_

I shouldn’t have _minded_ being alone. I _had been_ for years and it’d never bothered me. But I was so tired and so damn confused and I just wanted to sleep. Sleep deep and long and wake up in Evan’s bed with _his_ heartbeat in my ear and _his_ arms around me. I shouldn’t have wanted that. I shouldn’t have thought of it. I should have been grateful to be free. I should have been happy to be back with the others. But I _did_ , I did want Evan, and I wasn’t glad to be free. Alone, when the others were all gone off hunting food and supplies and whatever else they could gather in the fog, I found myself stifling sobs in the crock of my arm, bent over the campfire and weeping wracking tears through clenched teeth.

Because… I wanted to go back... wanted… Evan.

Only… only he’d told me to leave. Told me to go, and watched me do it with no remorse, no sign of _regret_. Just let me go and made no move to stop me. He didn’t _want_ me. What Evan _wanted_ was me _out of his way_. Wanted the Saboteur, the pest, the nuisance out of his house and off his land. I’d been an amusement, a small entertainment; that was all, that was infinity. He’d got whatever it was he wanted and now I was nothing. Not even an afterthought.

So, I stayed alone. Stayed at the campfire. No big deal, nothing to worry about, nothing new. Just the normal. Just life for Jake Park.

And if I kept looking for the killer in every Trial, if I kept stumbling around hoping to find him, well what did _that_ matter? It wasn’t as though I could _die_! I was stuck, we all were stuck, stuck in a hell we’d never asked for and didn’t understand.

Though, understanding the Entity and its game didn’t really seem all that important anymore. _Who the fuck cared?!_ It didn’t _matter_! Trial, campfire, Trial, campfire, a loop set on repeat and all that consumed me the fact each Trial I encountered every killer _but_ Evan. And wasn’t _that_ just _fucking amazing_?! Like the Entity was amusing itself with the fact or using it as some kind of joke. Or it was just a _stupid ass_ _coincidence_ that my mind was giving meaning.

Whatever it was, I stopped expecting to see Evan, eventually. Stopped anticipating finding him, stopped thinking I’d see him just around the next corner, stopped everything. Except looking for him and hoping… But, if I kept doing that, what did it matter? I’d somehow earned an eternity in hell, hadn’t I? And maybe I deserved that. Maybe I deserved all of it. The scars and the red lines on my arms my nails dug, day after day, and the bruises under my eyes and the _ache_ that wouldn’t fucking leave me alone. I deserved to be in hell. Deserved to lay there on the ground and spasm with little, hiccupping sobs, as lines of hot tears trickled down my face.

Deserved it and didn’t fight it. Just accepted it, let it happen, like I let the fog take me and like I let myself stumble through each Trial. Until, thoughtlessly, I stumbled right into Evan. Turned a corner and blundered right up against his chest and bounced off like I’d hit a wall of stone.

My eyes were wet because I’d been crying, blurred because I’d been _crying_ , and I was dazed and all I could do was blink up at him like the stunned thing I was. Like some small, helpless creature that’d just found itself face-to-face with a predator but was unsure whether to run or to stay still, hypnotized by the bigger animal’s presence.

_Evan._

The word was a longing slicing my heart and leaving me there, looking up at him because He was finally _there_ , right there and—

He was there to kill me. This was a Trial and he was there to kill me and we were both stuck. Stuck still.

Until we weren’t. Until I took a step back, my stomach dropping and my chest somehow empty, choking on a sob I couldn’t let out. Couldn’t _let_ him hear.

Evan _didn’t_ hear it and maybe that was a mercy. His breath huffed behind his mask and he took a step toward me, his hand tightening on the cleaver he held low, dragging over the ground. I turned to run and he killed me so fast I didn’t even feel it. There was the sensation of pressure and then I was waking up screaming and jerking upright at the campfire with Feng asking, “Hey, are you alright?”

I just stared at her, unable to process what had just happened, unable to _think it through_ , only still feeling that _pressure_ along my back, feeling what’d been the swing of Evan’s cleaver cutting me apart. _Evan._ He’d killed me. Killed me and banished me from his sight like I was nothing and he’d never held me to his chest because he knew I’d be cold.

Feng’s face did an odd thing and crumbled up at my dead-eyed gaze, but I barely noticed. I just kept staring for a little more, before stumbling to my feet and stumbling into the fog. I didn’t even know if Feng tried to stop me, if she called out to me and tried to get me to come back. Didn’t know and didn’t care. My nails were digging into my skin and my teeth into my lip and I was making little, dry, useless sounds, only one thing claiming all of my being.

_Evan._

The word a little whimper in my mind and the _idea_ of him a force I couldn’t resist anymore. Didn’t _want_ to. If I was in hell, what did it matter what I did? What did it matter if I went crawling back to Evan? It didn’t and the fog seemed to agree. It parted for me like it always had and before I could even register it, the MacMillan manor was rising above me and Evan’s land was opening around me. I could have stopped to mess around with his traps, could have indulged in a little sabotage, like I had so many times before, but every time I paused over a trap I didn’t even want to. Didn’t want to dismantle them, didn’t want to leave them in pieces for Evan to find. I only wanted one thing. I wanted Evan to find _me_ , and the best way to make that happen was to keep going on ahead.

Much of me expected to run into Evan, to discover him on his grounds or to find him walking the manor, but I didn’t. I made my way back to the bedroom we’d shared and stopped outside the door, shaking and stupidly afraid to go in after I’d come this far.

But I _had_ come this far and why stop now? What was the point? _Fuck it._ I _wanted_ Evan to find me, after all, so why worry? Why _care_?

No reason. No reason at all.

I opened the door and let it swing inward. Evan wasn’t there. But everything else was devastatingly familiar. The smell, the feeling, the sheets bunched on the bed, the pillows strewn over its expanse, the chain, ripped out of the splintered headboard and thrown in a corner. Everything was the same, and it made me bury my face in my arm and growl back a sob, almost scream it back.

Only Evan wasn’t there and he didn’t seem to be in the house or on the grounds, and I didn’t know where he was and I didn’t want to go back. So, I curled up in the center of the bed, like a pathetic thing, drew one of Evan’s pillows to me because it smelled like him. Like all the _nights_ we’d spent together and all the _days_ I’d wondered where he was without me. And that… that was just too much.

Evan found me there, however long later, wrapped around that pillow and not so much crying as clinging to it with shivering arms and eyes that wouldn’t stop streaming hot, salty tears. I heard him come in, heard him pause there, just inside the door, heard him breathing behind his mask, and buried my face in the pillow for a while longer before I could raise my surely-red eyes to face him. And I couldn’t hold it together. For the first time I outright cried in front of Evan MacMillan, my face crumpling and my voice breaking over one word.

“Evan.”

The larger man did nothing for a few moments and I hid my face away again, shoulders shuddering, because what was he going to do? I’d just blatantly trespassed on his land and in his bed and _stupidly stayed there for him to find_ and what was he going to do? A quick death might be the least I could hope for, but…

But.

But Evan walked to the bed and sat down and took off his mask and when he opened his arms he said, “Well come on then, Saboteur.”

I whined something low in down in my throat because I didn’t have the power to do anything else, but I abandoned the pillow I held, to crawl across the bed and into those arms and huddle there against that chest I knew so well, with that heartbeat in my ear. Evan’s arms were tight around me, like he would never let me go again, and I didn’t understand and nothing made sense but it was warm with Evan’s arms around me.

**Author's Note:**

> This salty ball of angst and glitter is an original fiction author and fan fiction writer, who literally lives for comments and reader interaction. Even if this is nothing but inarticulate vowel screams, lol. He exist on a flotilla of social media, separated into a wide array writery things.
> 
> If you are crazy enough to want to see what I'm writing on any given day, and maybe try tempting me into writing something specific, feel free to join me in my personal writing Discord [Midway](https://discord.gg/jsQw96p), or friend me on Discord at LeoOtherland#7066 if you would rather chat one on one.
> 
> On Facebook I can be located on my [author page](https://www.facebook.com/LeoOtherland/) for all things original fiction, or in the [AO3 Armada group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951) for all things fan fiction.
> 
> On [Twitter](https://twitter.com/RoseOfOtherLand) or [Tumbler](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/leootherlands) I primarily run with the fan fiction crowd and I seldom post and/or tweet anything, but if you want to drop me a line, I am always up for a chat.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Things in Chains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26365690) by [Tridraconeus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus)




End file.
